Of Dreams, Statues and Shadows...
[Image: René Magritte, 'The Lovers', 1928]
Life is an unrehearsed process. One is placed within it with little instruction. At every moment, choices are made out of necessity. Often, the results of those choices are both unfortunate and irrevocable. Only in dreams can we hope to go back to the very moment when Fate took away our Love, or our Hope, or our Faith. But dreams are made not of marble, but of sand. The remnants of the fleeting dream pour through our grasping fingers at dawn’s awakening, leaving only a sterile memory of the cursèd fatal moment that can never be changed …
NOCTURNO DE LA ESTATUA
A Agustín Lazo
Soñar, soñar la noche, la calle, la escalera
y el grito de la estatua desdoblando la esquina.
Correr hacia la estatua y encontrar sólo el grito,
querer tocar el grito y sólo hallar el eco,
querer asir el eco y encontrar sólo el muro
y correr hacia el muro y tocar un espejo.
Hallar en el espejo la estatua asesinada,
sacarla de la sangre de su sombra,
vestirla en un cerrar de ojos,
acariciarla como a una hermana imprevista
y jugar con las fichas de sus dedos
y contar a su oreja cien veces cien cien veces
hasta oírla decir: «estoy muerta de sueño».
Xavier Villaurrutia, 1938.
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Nocturne: the Statue
To Agustín Lazo
To dream, to dream the night, the street, the stairway
and the scream of the statue unfolding in the corner.
To run toward the statue and find only the scream,
to want to touch the scream and find only the echo,
to want to seize the echo and find only the wall
and to run toward the wall and to touch a mirror.
To find in the mirror the murdered statue,
to obtain the blood from her shadow,
to dress her in closed eyes,
to caress her like an unforeseen sister
and to play the tokens of her fingers
and to count into her ear a hundred times a hundred hundred times
until I hear her say: «I am dead from dreaming».
Xavier Villaurrutia, 1938.
[traducción inglesa por Raymond E. André III, 2009]