Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

Commentary II (saint theresa)

with my love running over and spilling/
all around me the miniscule animals
grow fat feeding on your absence/
or is it your presence
makes me childish like feet crushing
sadnesses on the edge of what it is about to sing/
like a magnificent victory where
my souls are reflections of you?

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

Commentary I (saint theresa)

dear love going away like a bird
stretched out over the horizons is it right
to give ourselves to the whole / without
being a part of anything / not even of the flight
that takes you away? / do sisters and brothers think
flying in circles gets you anywhere / or that
going away and at the same time staying you reach
the oneness looked for like manna from heaven?
in other words / life is difficult i mean
the health i undermine to find you like light /
or word / twig where you may rest
like your hand on my heart

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

Alone

you’re alone / my country / without
the comrades you lock up and destroy / you hear
them slowly being emptied of the love
they have left / they loosen their grip
on their turn to die / dream they’re being dreamed / quieted /
they’ll never see other faces growing /
leaning out / continued / in this sun /
some day in the sun of justice

Selected Poems of Juan Gelman
 translated by Hardie St. Martin

Quiet at Last

quiet at last / so terribly alone / without kisses / my comrades
think me night after night / they toss and turn
unable to sleep / restless under sheets
of earth or water where they’re going away /

gone / eaten away by the truth / i toss and turn /
around this shame like a wing / fly
little bird / fly / my son’s face in the middle
of my woman or loneliness / pull away /

i’m burning with the fire you burn
lowered / comrades / or neighborhoods of fire
my soul passed through like a voice
walking now with the world’s feet