Prelude to hope - Vicente Huidobro

You sing and sing you talk and talk

And roll on through time

And weep like a wild lily

And sigh in long uncertain gasps that don’t know what to say

At times too you laugh with your bones from the great night

Articulated correctly in the skeleton

Fixed to their bit of earth greeting the sky.

Beg approval for your high interests

In the land of hope which awakens in your ribs

Beg lessons from the tree accused by its excesses

And its wings accustomed to whatever difficulty

Listen to the river’s departure listen to the shadow inside the flower

You sing and sing you talk and talk

And you dream that the species will forget darkness

Soon soon forgetting your weeping

Tears armed with such a distant light

Like numbered animals emerging from the sea

Soon forgetting so many desired shadows

Soon the future of horizons that know your passion

You sing and sing

And you have a voice stored up

You have a voice with some painful sides

And some impatient corners

And drops of stars lost by its tender heart

You have waterfalls in your most thoughtful regions

You have objects converted into glass in the depths of your eyes

You have roads born for the dark sound of your throat

You can make a knot of gates with your enigmas

And just like that unleash time amongst the sounds and portents

You can give a part of it to your light there on the road

You talk and talk

And we already know that it’s like the sound of the rain

Falling headfirst onto the fields

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Vicente Huidobro (1893 - 1948) Chile

Translated by Tony Frazer

Source: Vicente Huidobro Selected Poems, Edited by Tony Frazer, Translated by Michael Smith & Luis Ingelmo, Eliot Weinberger and Tony Frazer, Shearsman Books, 2019