Silvia / Hesnor Rivera

Silvia

The women who loved me
have surely died.
They belonged to a different race.
The atmosphere of flame necessary to their bodies
disappeared one night with the stars.
And now they can only rest their hair
on the illusion of sacred brightness
that is distance.

In the time of the sun
I could recognize them
by the mere movement of their shadows.
Then I was invaded by the impetus
of running barefoot on the transparent water.

And it was you Silvia
–nothing more than your magical glance
who were able to brighten the sand
where I would lay down to escape the night.
It was you who in passing made
each park regain its blazing youth.
And when we offered ourselves to the enchantment
                                                       [of the highest streets
facing the darkest windows
it was you who would invoke and place at our feet
the inhabitants of the shade.

One evening you buried a pearl in the lawn.
It was an homage to the beautiful days of December.

And when you perceived the presence
of the vagabonds who were spying on our offering
you postponed the birth of the tree that would unite us.
You vanished the possible rose
whose aroma would equal in weight
and consistency our blood.

Because from that point on
–from that gesture
you would have helped me save
this double appearance that imprisons us.
This double calling that requires us in one time
and leaves us immobile in the empty
world of its differences.

Then I saw weeping in your face for the first time.
I saw in your hands the stones you threw at the night:
The world was alone.
You told me about disappeared beings.
About disappeared seas.
About a certain star like an only mansion
where death and life, love and hate
were facts that were barely able
to liven an afternoon’s falling.

And from then on we were ghosts
–nothing more than ghosts.
You loved me Silvia. I loved in you the defiance
against the shade facing the woods.
The defiance of the woods facing the sky.
We loved each other and it was there in love
this disappearance that will annul us begins.
The love in my hands is a force
that distances whatever it caresses.
You will have disappeared. You will be in your race
–in your star where the flame blows.

Yet I know you still exist. I know you exist.
I have contemplated the trees again.
Felt the flowers.
I walked so much because one day
–I know it well– in a sea I don’t know.
In the great distance made as it is of blue sand
of small stones and fruits that have fallen
–in a dawn beyond time I will see you
I will hear you sing from your life.

I know you exist. And one day it will be you Silvia
–nothing more than your magical glance
who will manage to brighten the painful
sand that I make for myself.
Who will recover the blazing youth
of the oldest park in the world that I am now.

Otherwise you will know I am of the world
and I will curse you and cry
because hatred will hand me over to the night calling
to nourish its starving tunnels with me.




1954




{ Hesnor Rivera, Superficie del enigma, Maracaibo: Universidad del Zulia, 1968 }