El selenita / José Antonio Ramos sucre

The Selenite

I would not know how to distinguish, in the most accurate nautical cards, where the island of my captivity was to be found. It must appear with the name of a reef.
     The moon was depressing its flight through darkness and inspiring the illusion of starting from an impenetrable tower. I reclined on its pulverulent staircase and was put to sleep by a bison shepherd’s fife. I dreamed of a maiden from other ages and a vestige of her brief sojourn on the island of torrents. The relic of her step, hidden in some forgotten debris, could restore me to the heart of the civil world.
     I ignore if I had awoken when I took on the chimerical demand, the path of the sierra. I did not let myself be frightened by some beautiful and irascible women, gathered in tumult and armed with nettle stalks and branches.
     The spell of the fife was suspending me in the air and I was flying, changed into a light substance, over the rocks and precipices. The island was deserted and the solemn remainders of a deceased race did not yield anywhere save for the peak of the unscathed mountains.
     I found a gold ring, the augured garment, amid the ruins of an alcázar, cavern home, where the boom and smoke of lightning still circulated.




El cielo de esmalte (1929)




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