César Seco (Venezuela)

Por: César Seco
Traductor: Luis Alberto Angulo

Trees

What are these trees talking about
What do they say to each other in a half afternoon
When somebody takes a long time
Turning around the street

What do they talk about what do they argue
Or are they listening somebody's heart
When it is entangling and disentangling
In their roots

What do their leaves write up in the air
What dialogue raises up in the height
Of their frondage and thick stems
Where somebody stopped

What do they say, what do they never mention
What words make their branches move

To Eugenio Montejo

Cesar Seco was born in Coro, State of Falcón, Venezuela in January 29, 1959. Poet, essayist and publisher. Founder of the poetry House -Rafael José Alvarez- and of The Literature Biennal -Elías David Curiel-. Director of the magazine OIKOS. At the beginnings of the eighties he took part of the literary group Cráter and actually belongs to The Web of Writers of Venezuela. He has been awarded twice with the Municipal Prize of The Mayorship of Miranda State of falcon (1993 and 2000). With the book El viaje de los Argonautas and other poems he obtained The Biennal Poetry Prize -Ramón Palomares- ( Trujillo, 2005). He collaborated of the literary supplement Verbigracia of the diary El Universal. He integrates the magazine Poesía from The University of Carabobo. He has published the books: El laurel y la piedra, 1991; Árbol sorprendido, 1995; Oscuro ilumina, 1999 and Mantis, 2004. Poems and essays by him have been published in national and international magazines. He has participated as well in literary events such as The Biennals -Elias David Curiel- (Coro), -José Rafael Pocaterra- (Valencia) and -Mariano Picón Salas- (Mérida), The I National Encounter of Young Writers (Maracaibo, 1989) in the Round Table of the poetry from Venezuela (Cumaná, 1993), The II Literature Encounter of Literature from carabobo (1989). The International Poetry Week in Caracas (1999), I International Encounter of The Magazine Poesía (Valencia, 2002), International Book Fair (Mérida,1999), (Maracaibo,2002), Caracas (2003), The I y II Poetry World Festival (Caracas, 2004,2005), The International Book Fair La Habana (2006) and the International Poetry Festival of La Habana (2006). Vertical axis, heaven and hell gate, the tree is one of the emblematic figures in Cesar Seco's poetry. Planted in the night it receives the infinite; agitated by the wind its branches swing as an infuriated long hair to the rhythm of the stars. Hieratical and insomniac, it resists the climate mutations and the flood charges. Inhabitant of two worlds, the tree sinks its roots in the obscurity the same as it expands its arms towards the luminous border. "The tree grows in the middle of the night" Its branches reach the sky- And in it will be founded the symbolism of what ascends. Image of nostalgia, its structure draws with fairness the cosmic fusion which the man has lost, bended over his mental harshness, its arms spread out as a nervous system that shocks the wind. Its intricate spreading develops the issue of communication with the wholeness; its branches seem like the infinite bifurcations that creation took since its sunk origin.