Bones

Eliana Maldonado Cano
11 feb 2023
1 Min. de lectura

This skin that resists the ravages

of the wind have a soul behind me.

Loneliness was taken by the yellow bird at five at the morning and then I feel the cold insert in myself …

very deep inside.

Sometimes the love or the kiss or the hope of one or the other break into pieces the bones that tie me to the earth.

There are days when I feel the call of the earth claiming them, and I pray and beg for a few more hours, even if it is to sway with the wind.

The earth pulls from the magma for my remains, it knows that I must return. They orfer my bones now.

To the land from which you were born you have to return and they claim me.

The cold does not cook the bones, they make like rocks and it makes me strong, hard, but still...

sad.

Comments

Todo está planeado.
Me levantaré cuando la Hidra esté en el cénit.
Caminaré en dirección de la Cruz del Sur.
Los pájaros estarán en sus nidos y el búho,
que a esa hora gira la cabeza a la izquierda,
no me verá pasar.
Solo tengo miedo del rumor en el pecho,
será incontenible y aquí,
en este valle, resuenan con fuerza los ecos.
No llevo más equipaje que la piel
y un juego de párpados.
Emergeré en la segunda ola
que rompa en la mañana.

Tomado de Hacía el Pacífico

Tomado de Hacía el Pacífico

III

That’s how the condor's eyes told me No.

They flew over the Andes after hearing my pleagary,

they looked at him from afar and understood that his love

was in another river,

with other fish that swam

slowly and spoke in other tongues.

The solar bird approached himself and rested on my arm,

I trembled, I was afraid that it would fall,

he sweetly laid his head on my neck

and cried like the little misk'i mayu[1]

that sang the night I let him love me at his will.

His fingernails clung to my skin, and I bled,

not like in a carnival,

and what was left of my body, got broken into pieces.

Yawar mayu[2] I heard in the distance.

He took flight.

"Forget it," he said.

The sun rays stopped shining in his wild eyes,

then he left me in the middle of the Andean abyss at the mercy of the wind.

[1] Misk'i mayu: Mayu is river

[2] Bood river

Illustrations by Josy Mar Arteaga

The ghost bird sings as he does every night from his branch.

I know that he knows I hear him,

that it is to me he sings in that tone of lament and sadness.

In this house no one else hears him,

just my ears that are keen to the lament of those who lie in the world below.

Croaking frogs try to make me oblivious,

they sing joyful songs amid the funeral tune.

The water runs down the slope effortlessly

like someone reluctant to know.

Sing, sing urutaú[1].

I understand who you're talking about and what you say.

Sing, sing urutaú.

I’ll keep on hearing your lament through the night

which is the voice of the one who is no longer with me.

Sing, sing urutaú,

sing to me.

[1] Urutaú: (Nyctibius griseus), ghost bird.

Eliana Maldonado Cano

PhD en Literatura

Comments

Illustrations by Josy Mar Arteaga

Illustrations by Josy Mar Arteaga