Pedro De Oraá (Cuba)
Por:
Pedro De Oraá
Traductor:
Harry Haskell
Affirmation of the Word
The light from the window on the blank page
the extended hand overflows
spilling out serpentine phrases
that nest in the silence of the room, the house,
the silence of my flesh.
On the pure whiteness of the page
I see clouds, the blue night transparent in the day;
restless violet shadows, shades of gray,
the uncertain light that rejoices, becomes saddened,
according to the whims of the blue and the clouds.
The word is something more than signs inscribed
on the obedient page.
(When was the word oppressed endlessly giving us
a horizon close to its world in repose?)
In the discordant light of another afternoon
I will seize this paper peopled with signs,
or this page still deserted by time
and the word will blossom
in the instant it was created: a night of cold stars,
a rainy day, the blue delirium of the sun,
a shadow with shades of gray,
and the silence, this silence
where the word lives,
is the silence of the room, the house,
and the silence of the world.
