(Basado en Rilke)
Una noche que abre un tajo entre vos y vos
Una noche que abre un tajo entre vos y vos
y vos y vos y vos
y yo : nos aparta como un hombre a empujones
entre la multitud. No vamos
a buscarnos —cada cual
se aleja, cada cual solo, sin mirar,
en el gentío lento. Entre los puestos
bajo las carteleras de los cines,
cuadros pintados con un millón de luces,
gigantes que se mueven y se mueven una
y otra vez, sobre una nube espesa de olores
a salchichas y a castañas asadas—
O al subir a un departamento, el tuyo o
el tuyo, te encontrás con
alguien sentado en la penumbra:
¿Quién es? Entonces prendés la luz
para mirar: sabés el nombre, pero
¿quién es?
Y no vas a verlo.
El tubo fluorescente parpadea, hosco,
una pausa. Pero vos ordenás. Y levanta
cada rostro y lo sostiene
del pelo para vos, máscara tras máscara.
del pelo para vos, máscara tras máscara.
Vos y vos y vos y yo repetimos los
gestos que conforman cuando falló
el discurso y hablamos
y hablamos, y nos reímos, y decimos
“Yo” y “Yo”,
queriendo decir “Alguien”.
Nadie.
People at Night
A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd. We won't
look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
under movie signs,
pictures made of a million lights,
giants that move and again move
again, above a cloud of thick smells,
franks, roasted nutmeats-
Or going up to some apartment, yours
or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
But you won't see.
The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
You and you and I repeat
gestures that make do when speech
has failed and talk
and talk, laughing, saying
'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
No one.
A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd. We won't
look for each other, either-
wander off, each alone, not looking
in the slow crowd. Among sideshows
under movie signs,
pictures made of a million lights,
giants that move and again move
again, above a cloud of thick smells,
franks, roasted nutmeats-
Or going up to some apartment, yours
or yours, finding
someone sitting in the dark:
who is it really? So you switch the
light on to see: you know the name but
who is it ?
But you won't see.
The fluorescent light flickers sullenly, a
pause. But you command. It grabs
each face and holds it up
by the hair for you, mask after mask.
You and you and I repeat
gestures that make do when speech
has failed and talk
and talk, laughing, saying
'I', and 'I',
meaning 'Anybody'.
No one.
©Denise Levertov ( From Here and Now (1957) in Collected Earlier Poems 1940- 1960, New Directions Publishing, New York, 1979).
Versión en castellano de Sandra Toro
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