El fugitivo / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

The Fugitive

I was anxiously fleeing, with sore feet, through the hinterlands. The snow flurry was dampening the black ground.
     I was hoping to save myself in the forest of birches, incurved by the squall.
     I was able to hide in the antrum caused by the uprooting of a tree. I composed the manifested roots so as to defend myself from the brown bear, and scattered the bats with shouts and hand claps.
     I was bewildered by the blow I’d received on my head. I was suffering hallucinations and nightmares in the hiding place. I understood I would escape them by running further.
     I crossed the quagmire covered with long, amplective reeds, and emerged into a second desert. I would abstain from lighting a campfire lest they reach me.
     I would lie down in the open air, numbed by the cold. I was glimpsing the messengers of my methodical executioners. They were following on horseback, assisted by black dogs, with eyes of fire and ferocious howls. The riders displayed, for a crest, a squirrel’s tail.
     I could make out, when I reached the border, the light of asylum, and I ran to crouch at the feet of my god.
     His seated image listens with lowered eyes and smiles gently.




La torre de Timón (1925)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }