Aurelio Arturo by Gilberto Arturo

Aurelio Arturo and his father

Aurelio Arturo

BIOGRAPHY

By Gilberto Arturo

Translated by Nicolás Suescún

The poetry of Aurelio Arturo is both a world and a frame of mind. It is a dazzling and intimate world revealed through the poet’s sympathy with nature. It is a self-contained, complete universe in which every object is a living being, defined by its relations with the other beings that inhabit the same world.

It is a world closed to signification but open to transcendence: in its identification with the natural world, where animals and plants are one and the same ‘vegetation’; in its identification with the senses – the tactile, the aromas “only for the ear”, the wild, rustic tastes; and with living, vital, interrelated beings, all of them charged with meaning and sentiment.

In Morada al sur (A home in the south) Aurelio Arturo selected what he considered to be his life’s work; the rest, consequently, is conjecture.

His poetry does not describe the interior world of the poet’s own feelings: love flows from the contemplation of the outside world and from the music of the verse. It travels through different frames of mind as it moves through the various landscapes and places of his environment, meeting their inhabitants . . . the birds . . . the leaves.

In the end, he goes so deeply into himself (and the reader) that what flows from inside is a profound sensation of plenitude and peace, of harmony with the world, with nature – a feeling of tranquil and serene joy, not subject to sudden frights or fears. The words of his poems transport us into a world of enchantment and fantasy.

The strength of this poetry does not inspire reverential awe; nor does it derive from playing with words. It is a quiet strength, like that of the grass in his poem “covering footsteps, cities, years”. His poetry is like a fog that imperceptibly and slowly surrounds and covers us. Words pass before our eyes, following each other; and before we realise it, we are immersed and profoundly moved, surrounded by poetry.

Arturo’s is a mysterious poetry; but the mystery is not about something we don’t quite understand and therefore fear, but about what surrounds us, something we feel but do not touch. “In the mestizo nights that rose from the grass/ young horses, shadows, brilliant curves . . .” and “the murmur of date trees in the wind.”

His poetry is concerned with the enjoyment of life and, although it does not deny the setbacks and sadnesses of real life, it takes them and involves them in the deep experience of the moment.

Aurelio Arturo / Song of the Quiet Night

SONG OF THE QUIET NIGHT

By Aurelio Arturo

BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún  

CANCIÓN DE LA NOCHE CALLADA

In the balmy night, in the night,              
when the leaves rise until they are the stars,  
I hear the women grow in the mauve penumbra
and the falling of the shade from their lids, drop by drop.

I hear the broadening of their arms in the penumbra
and I could even hear the breaking of an ear of wheat in the field.     

A word sings in my heart, whispering  

green leaf  falling without end. In the balmy night,      
when the shade is the unrestrained growing of the trees,
a long dream of prodigious journeys kisses me     
and there is in my heart a great light of sun and marvel.

In the midst of a night with a murmur of forest  
like the very light noise of a falling star,
I woke in a dream of trembling golden ears of wheat
beside the nubile body of a sweet brunette,            
as at the edge of a sleeping valley.                     

And in the night of leaves and murmuring stars,          
I loved a country, and it is from its dark slime
a scarce portion the bitter heart;
I loved a country that for me is a maiden,
a deep murmur, an endless flow, a soft tree.

I loved a country and from it I brought a star
which is a wound in my side, and I brought
a woman’s scream from within my flesh.             

In the balmy night, young and soft night,
when the high leaves are already light, eternal . . .

But if your body is earth from where the shade grows,
if already in your eyes big stars fall endlessly,
what shall I find in the valleys that ruffle brief wings?
what fire shall I look for without days or nights?  

Aurelio Arturo / Song of Leaves and Distances

SONG OF LEAVES AND DISTANCES

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún

CANCIÓN DE HOJAS Y LEJANÍAS  

  
They were the leaves, the murmuring leaves,
the freshness, the countless glowing.
They were the green leaves – the living cell,
the imperishable instant of the landscape –  
the green leaves that bring near, in their murmuring,  

the sonorous distances like rigging,         
the fine, the naked, oscillating leaves.

The leaves and the wind.
Leaves that waved with marine rhythm,
leaves with pure voices
speaking at the same time, and they were not     
so many but a single one, palpitating       
in a thousand mirrors of air, an endless        
humid leaf in all the lights,            
queen of the horizon, agile,        
jumping little bird, pecking through all
the circles of the horizon, the sparkling circles.

The leaves, the flocks of leaves,
on the brink of the blue, on the brink of flying.

They were the leaves and the murmuring distances,
the leaves and the distances full of languages,
the distances that the wind strums as strings:
oh the stave, the stave of distances                 
where the leaves are notes played by the wind.

In the leaves beautiful countries and their clouds rustled.
In the leaves murmured distances of remote countries,
they rustled like rains of joyful green,
they laughed, laughed the rains of perfectly clear languages
like waters, fairies’ cheerful languages, vowels of joy.

And the distances had rustles of successive fronds,
the distances heard, heard rains that tell legends,
they heard ancient rains. And the wind             
carried the distances as it carries a leaf

Aurelio Arturo / Silence

Night Forest Hand Painted Silk Scarf

SILENCE

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún  

SILENCIO

Heads of hair and confused dreams
cover the bodies like muffled mosses
in the night, in the embroidering shade  
of deep velvets and oblivion.

Gold flickers the sky like beaks
of birds that swoop down in flocks,
black warps inlaid with living gold,                 
over that great silence of corpses.         

And thus, alone, saved from the shade,
next to the library where the murmur           
of aged trunks wanders, I hear something like  
the limitless clamour of a valley.

Harsh drum amid the night, it sounds     
when all are dead, when all
in the dream, in death, fall into   
a silence full and deep as a scream.       

Let the dream of silky wings haunt me,
haunt me like a laurel of dark leaves
but oh the great hurricane of the deep silences,
of the clamorous silences.

And next to that bivouac of old books,
while the still night that imitates
a grove moves shade and silence,    
I look for you in the prodigious depths,  

fiery, voracious, chained word.

Aurelio Arturo / The Song of Summer

The Song of Summer
LA CANCIÓN DEL VERANO

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún  

    
And this is the song of one summer
among many beautiful summers,
when the dust rises and dances             
and the sky is a blue, distant foliage.

And then she came with the breezes
that rose from the streams and its shells,     
she that sang the song of the summer,
the song of dry and aromatic herbs    
that rustled, when at my side             
I felt her like a land that breathes             
and like a dream of pollen and stars                         
that slide lukewarm on the skin and the hands.

Then she came leaping                 
amid the breezes and the afternoon, together,
and the first thing I saw was her waving dress       
in the distance, in the distance against the pure sky.
But from then on I never again had eyes for her dress.
And I heard nothing else, but the song of the summer.

Aurelio Arturo / Still

Billie Holliday

STILL

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

With the collaboration of

Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún 

TODAVÍA 

A woman sang, she sang
feeling herself alone in the night,         
in the night, velvety valley.  

She sang and the sweetest
a woman’s voice can be, that was hers.             
It flowed from her lips
loving life…                        
life when it has been beautiful.

A woman sang
as in a deep forest, and without looking at her
I knew she was so sweet, so beautiful.
She sang, still
she sings…

Aurelio Arturo / Word

WORD

By Aurelio Arturo
BIOGRAPHY

Translated by Raúl Jaime Gaviria

with the collaboration

of Edgardo Arturo and Nicolás Suescún 

PALABRA

 
The word surrounds us
we hear it
we touch it  
its aroma surrounds us                 
a word that we say
and we model with the hand
fine and rough
and that
we forge
with the fire of blood                 
and the softness of the skin of our beloved ones
omnipresent word
with us from the dawn
and even before                     
in the dark water of the dream
or in the age from which we barely save
remnants of memories
of frights
of terrible tenderness
that goes with us
a silent monologue
                 a dialogue
a word we offer to our friends
a word we coin
for love for complaining       
for flattery                             
a coin made of sun                 
or silver
or a false coin
in it we look at ourselves
to know who we are
our occupation                                 
and race  
it reflects  
our self                            
our tribe
deep mirror
and when it is happiness and anguish
and the vast skies and the green foliage
and the earth that sings
then that flight of words
is poetry     
can be poetry