Translated and read by Parvati Nair (Queen Mary University of London)
BETWEEN CLASSES, RACES AND BORDERS
In the natural separations
That were invented by the gods,
Arbitrary, bloodless utopians,
Creators of some kind of federalism
That usurped the universal dream,
The word arrived generously,
To unite without convincing, for disagreeing
From the depths of the disheartening,
Forged through race and class struggles
In trans-border cooperation
As in a Europe united through disunity
Broken by the Bosphorus and the Urals.
Sovereign discontinuity
Lays the siege of fire open to us pyrallises
Who die beyond borders
Set by the boarding of a pirate
Who leads a snoozing ship.
Home no longer exists in my Transnistria;
Peace was broken in Kosovo, in Bosnia.
There is no longer a hiding place in Kashmir,
A linchpin between Ethiopia and Eritrea,
An undue contact in Darfur
That resounds with the drums of Niger,
A fire against the partiality
That sets its traces with discord
To raise walls, walls, walls,
Endless walls in the Sahara,
The desert stillness of the sands
That separate Algeria from Morocco.
The world shows solidarity if from afar
It is not taxed for the mosaic
That sets its borders like Columbus
Ready to enrich himself if they do not come,
If they ransack life step by step
Till they purify their wealth
So that they may enter the kingdom of heaven.
What happens when they display their miseries
And appear at the world’s doors
Violating hydrotopography
To state that we are Amerindians, Blacks,
United to whites, zambos, mulattoes
Who sully borders.
In fourteen hundred and ninety-four
The Church distributed states
And creed separated regions
With the caprice of the meridians.
There is the moral obligation to recall
In the face of vanity’s bonfire.
Nationalism and colonization,
Two faces of one coin,
Recall the Easter Rebellion,
While the world turns on an axis
That uselessly repeats itself without stopping
At the borders’ end.
We have to forge passports
And transgress fear through barbed wire
That others insist on raising.
The crossing requires plundering
the surfaces of life itself,
accumulating all the money we have,
though our efforts may not be compensated
when what awaits you is another workhouse
and a certain compromise of freedom.
Here hope that breaks bread
in realities does not go unscathed.
Dreams no longer fill the Host
When the sea is the border, with no destination known,
Imaginary icon of the life
Of a migrant expelled by paths
That stitch together the painful interface
Of a wound sealed after a crossing.
ENTRE CLASES, RAZAS Y FRONTERAS
En las separaciones naturales
que fueron inventadas por los dioses,
incruentos utopistas arbitrarios,
creadores de algún federalismo
usurpador del sueño universal,
generosa llegaba la palabra,
a unir sin convencer, por discrepar
con la profundidad del desaliento,
forjado en luchas de razas y clases
en cooperación transfronteriza
cual una Europa unida en desunión,
rota por el Bósforo y los Urales.
La soberana discontinuidad
tiende el cerco de fuego a las piraustas
que morimos allende las fronteras
que tiende el abordaje de un pirata
que dirige un navío en duermevela.
El hogar ya no existe en mi Transnistria;
la quietud se rompió en Kosovo, en Bosnia.
Ya no hay un escondite en Cachemira,
un foco entre Etiopía y Eritrea,
un desmedido contacto en Darfur
que lata con los tambores del Níger,
un fuego contra la parcialidad
que fija en desacuerdo sus trazados
para levantar muros, muros, muros,
interminables muros del Sahara,
la desierta quietud de las arenas
que separan a Argelia de Marruecos.
El mundo es solidario si de lejos
no paga los tributos del mosaico
que planta sus barreras cual Colón
dispuesto a enriquecerse si no vienen,
si saquean la vida paso a paso
hasta purificarles sus riquezas
para que entren al reino de los cielos.
Qué pasa cuando esgrimen sus miserias
y a las puertas del mundo se aparecen
violentando la hidrotopografía
para afirmar que somos indios, negros,
unidos a blancos, zambos, mulatos
quienes adulteramos las fronteras.
En mil cuatrocientos noventa y cuatro
la Iglesia repartía los estados
y la fe separaba las regiones
con el capricho de los meridianos.
Hay la obligación moral del recuerdo
ante la hoguera de las vanidades.
Nacionalismo y colonización,
como únicas caras de una moneda,
recuerdan el Alzamiento de Pascua
mientras el mundo gira sobre un eje
que se repite inútil sin cesar
en la delimitación de fronteras.
Hay que falsificar los pasaportes
y traspasar el miedo en alambradas
que los otros se empeñan en poner.
El trámite requiere saquear
las superficies de la vida misma,
juntar todo el dinero que se tenga,
aunque no se compensen los esfuerzos
cuando lo que te espera es otro ergástulo
y cierta libertad comprometida.
Aquí no queda ilesa la esperanza
que parte su pan en realidades.
Ya la hostia no preña de ilusiones
cuando el mar es la frontera, sin rumbo,
icono imaginario de la vida
de un migrante expulsado por caminos
que cosen la dolorosa interfaz
de una herida sellada tras un puente.
De Fronteras: ¿el azar infinito? [Borders: An Infinite Game of Dice?] (Leiden: Bokeh, octubre 2018)
Leído por el autor
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