Someone Must Be Called Twilight - Jaime Saenz

Through the years the glow persists.

The horizon, where my steps echo and go out with the twilight, persists.

The rains of spring, the waiting that begins when the year closes up, and the ceaselessly appearing vision;

this sky of spirits, this sky of things and shadows; the fall of evening persists.

The dead, the stones and songs persist; the clouds and the din and the lives;

the darkness, the world and the distance.

Through the tunnel of years, the glow persists.

Because nothing can swallow itself but real life which lives on the glow that swallows it.

Many times searching without being able to find you, the twilight would surprise me in the hour of your eyes.

Many times I forgot you, wanted to forget myself and remember, and remembered I had to forget you,

thinking of you for the very reason I didn't want to remember you

—the twilight would surround me at such times, I remember it perfectly.

I confused you with the twilight confusing myself with you;

you confused me with the twilight confusing yourself with me,

and you and I confused ourselves with the twilight which confused you in me and me in you,

confusing with you what was confused in me to confuse with me what was confused in you.

And many times in the same person there was a confusion of twilight, you and me,

and many more each confused with three other distinct persons,

adding up to nine altogether, which is to say, zero.

And there was no such person called twilight,

or, to tell the truth, no person not called twilight,

except those called you and I, who nevertheless could not keep from calling each other twilight.

for Carlos Ramírez

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Jaime Saenz (1921 – 1986) Bolivia

Translated by Kent Johnson and Forrest Gander

Source: Immanent Visitor, Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz, Translated by Kent Johnson and

Forrest Gander, University of California Press, 2002