Paul Auster / Provence: Equinox

PROVENCE: EQUINOX

by Paul Auster

Night-light: the bone and the breath

transparent. This journey

of proffered sky

we inhabit–a mountain

in the air that crumbles.

You alone

sleep down to the bottom

of this place,

stillborn earth, as though you could dream

far enough

to tell me of the dense, mud-reckoned seed

that burns in us,

and calm the slow, vernal agony

that labors

through the long uprooting

of stars.

Paul Auster / Testimony



TESTIMONY

by Paul Auster

In the high winter wheat

that blew us across

this no man’s land,

in the couplings of our anger

below these nameless white weeeds,

and because I lodged, everlastingly,

a flower in hell, I tell you

of the opening of my eye

beyond being,

of my being beyond being

only one,

and how I might acquit you

of this hiddenness, and prove to you

that I am

no longer alone,

that I am not

even near myself

anymore.



Paul Auster

TESTIMONIO

En el alto trigo invernal

que sopló hasta empujarnos

a este tierra de nadie,

en los acomplamientos de nuestra ira

más allá de esta mala hierba blanca y anónima,

y porque alojé, para siempre,

una flor en el infierno, te hablo

de la apertura de mi ojo

más allá del ser,

de mi ser más allá de ser

solo uno,

y cómo podría absolverte

de este escondimiento y probarte

que ya

no estoy solo,

que ni siquiera

estoy ya

cerca de mí.



Paul Auster / South

SOUTH

by Paul Auster

Hewn till white–: the bronze

heart and heaven-shape

of our gradual

winter.

Do not forget,

my dreamless one, I, too,

came to this world before

the snow.

Paul Auster

SUR

Tallado hasta ser blanco: el corazón

de bronce y la forma celeste

de nuestro inverno

gradual.

No lo olvides,

mi ser libre de sueños: yo también

vine a este mundo antes

que la nieve.

Paul Auster / Shadow to shadow

Self portrait
by Triunfo Arciniegas

São Paulo / Cemitério da Consolação, 2013

SHADOW TO SHADOW

by Paul Auster

Against the facade of evening:

shadows, fire and silence.

not even silence, but its fire–

the shadow

cast by a breath.

To enter the silence of this wall,

I must leave myself behind.

Self portrait
by Triunfo Arciniegas

São Paulo / Cemitério da Consolação, 2013

Paul Auster

DE SOMBRA A SOMBRA

Contra la fachada del atardecer:

sombras, fuego y silencio.

Ni siquiera silencio, sino su fuego,

la sombra

que arroja un respirar.

Para entrar en el silencio de este muro

Debo dejarme atrás a mí mismo.