E M I L I O   P R A D O S
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THREE POEMS

 

Translated by Donald Wellman

 

Insomnia

 

People sleep: Are they alive?
                     Is it from avarice that night works
under the dream, complicit with weariness,
on account of sadness, anxiety and imperfect love,
or does she bend her haughty shadow with abandon
so very alone observing those bodies in her oblivion?

The sky is quiet and time flows in its channel
dragging the sphere of the world, still incomplete.
Each blood in its bed, each corpse in its tomb,
continues to weave the star of its secret universe.

Neither bird, nor wind, nor ocean spray is a limit
that reveals the source of a wound in the earth.
Water changes forms with its incessant embrace
and is born and dies and is born without knowing eternity.

The echo of the moon, like an uncertain light,
over the skin, consoles that which we call life today.
For there is no assured flower, nor constant heart,
nor peace without crime, nor sun without misfortune.

The wheat field blooms, the tormented grain goes bad.
The child is born and perishes without the touch of a kiss.
No one knows if a dead one lives in their arms.
nor if kissing is a door to the source that he seeks.

Between fountain, tree, ashes and hatred,
man is ensnared upon the earth of his day;
he names the rock that does not know he exists,
and with each step denies bread and word.

The night is a desert when time bends her,
into an enormous hand that will threaten to sink us;
but while her shadow crushes us, in sleep,
involuntarily, we love and join together.

Do we sleep? Do we wake? Each blood to its bed,
each corpse in its tomb, the light weaves its enigma
and compels the heavens to undertake its journey.

With abandon we enter night
without voice or intention, only desire for her!

 

 

n e x t

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