The awakening

         to León Ostrov

Lord
The cage has become a bird
and has flown away
and my heart is crazy
because it howls at death
and smiles behind the wind
at my ravings

What will I do with my fear
What will I do with my fear

Light no longer dances in my smile
nor do seasons burn doves in my ideas
and gone where death
teaches the dead to live

Lord
The air punishes my body
Behind the air there are monsters
that drink my blood

It is a disaster
It is the hour of emptiness not empty
It is the moment to bolt closed the lips
to hear the screaming of the condmned
to study each one of my names
hanged by its neck in nothingness

Lord
I am twenty years old
My eyes are also twenty
Yet say nothing

Lord
I have lived out my life in an instant
The last innocence shattered
Now is never or nevermore
or simply was

How is it I don't kill myself in front of a mirror
and disappear to reappear in the sea
where a great ship would await me
with its lights burning?

How is it I don't pull out my veins
and with them build a ladder
to flee to the other side of night?

The beginning has given birth to the end
Everything will remain the same
The worn-out smiles
The concerned concern
The questions of stone on stone
The grimaces that mimic love
Everything will remain the same

But my arms insist on embracing the world
because they still haven't been taught
that it's too late

Lord
Throw the coffins out of my blood

I remember the black mornings of sun
when I was a girl
which is to say yesterday
which is to say centuries ago

Lord
The cage has become a bird
and has devoured my hopes

Lord
The cage has become a bird
What will I do with my fear


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Imagen: fotografía tomada de Alejandra Pizarnik. A Profile.
Texto: traducción del poema "El despertar" de Alejandra Pizarnik. El texto fue tomado de Alejandra Pizarnik. A Profile y la traducción fue realizada por María Rosa Fort y Frank Graziano.