Humberto Jarrín (Colombia)

Por: Humberto Jarrín
Traductor: Rodrigo Escobar Holguín and Ryan Rodrigo Robinson

Before your eyes other things happen
besides tear shedding
and the rain of day's down pour
like mirrors within mirrors
a long tunnel of the same things repeated over again
"think of the times one says I love you
inside the world love"
happened a gust of anonymous voices
noise singing survival
time, implores and presence
color necklaces on the sidewalks
a chameleon to be seen
not just the basilisk
which kills us with its looking
"think of the times one says forget
inside the word farewell"
the tide of the world
passes before you
and you see it growing through your eyes
which do not stare at any one thing
images of streaming foam
news in the evening wind
and the stars in the night hard to perceive
in certain nights
because only in the shadows are they sure of their light…
You see things passing as if magnetized
but they
they do not come up to appreciate
that you have granted them your light
maybe one of them deserves its name on your mouth
perhaps another one will startle at its worthiness
because some of its transient matter
inhabited the instant of your hands
"think of the times one says time
inside the word eternity"
but something
     something else passes
          it is me
               like a specter already
I am laden with calendars
with affairs which I saw coming and leaving
without you suspecting them
without even your farewell
so to deserve going to death
I pass and ask you just a moment
a brief eternity in which you notice me
"think of the times one says shadows
inside the word blindness"
I pass from the dark side
to point out to you certain lamps getting hazy
to show you the mirage of a lost man,
of a man dying.

Humberto Jarrín was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1957. Poet, playwright, professor and editor. He received the National Prize of Literature, Colcultura, playwrighting for children, Bogotá 1992. National Award of Short Stories for Children, Atlántico, 1995. National Poetry Prize Ciudad de Chiquinquirá, 1996. National poetry prize Jorge Isaacs (two times 1994 and 1996). National Poetry Prize Ministry of Culture 1998. At the same time he has been devoted to the cultural diffusion in the mass media, He co-directs and presents the radio program "Gesto Cultural", co-director of the poetry magazine Deriva, director of the literary magazine of German School of Cali, "Clepsydra."