Todos han muerto / José Barroeta

Everyone Has Died

Everyone has died.
The last time I visited the town
Egle consoled me
and she was sure, like me,
that everyone had died.

I got used to idea of knowing them silent
beneath the ground.
At first it seemed hard for me to understand
that my grandmother doesn’t bring baskets of figs
and gets bored under the marble.

In the winter
it was my turn to visit with the other boys
the ruined forest,
pull small fish from the river
and, listening, have a good drink.

I don’t remember exactly
when they began to die.
I attended the ceremonies and I liked
placing flowers on the recently moved ground.

Everyone has died.
The last time I visited the town
Egle was waiting for me
she said I had bags under my eyes
as though I’d been abandoned
and I smiled at her with the beatitude of someone who arrives
at a town where death is taking everything.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to the village.
I don’t know if Egle continued the tradition of dying
or if she’s still waiting.




Todos han muerto (1971)




{ José Barroeta, Todos han muerto: Poesía completa (1971-2006), Barcelona: Editorial Candaya, 2006 }