I hear your little weak voice a few days before you leave
I feel a pain in my chest
that crosses the soul and tears it apart
you do not look at me
and when you do
crystal rivers gather in the sea of your hazel-brown eyes
you tell me that it hurts you
to see me and to see us with sorrow
perhaps death embarrasses you a little
and you know that I will use my pain
as literary material
that you will read today
and repeat to yourself from another
possible some dimension.
You told me weeks before
a collage of symphonies
that resonate in every limb
admiration
love
resilience
that the struggle until the end,
yet you surrender now
just after I headed home
into winter
as a kind of agreement
with I don’t know whom
like an irony of life
of planning imperfect moments
with an imminent perfection
because you do not want—nor do I—to summarize your luminous life
in an Oregon pine casket
wake and funeral
hugs from strangers
traumas of facing death
that do not fit me.
You ask to be close to your mother
to become ash
to return to the earth
to let yourself be carried away by the rays of the sun
as you wrote to me
in your last letters
in our memory exercises
that I will always keep doing
as a legacy to your work
consistent, political, genuine
sincere
an ode to memory
an ode to your innate struggle
a tribute to you
to your learning.
I feel my soul tearing apart
as I write and mourn you
one floor above
you one floor below
an ocean separates us
Will you always love us?
The first love is the father
masculinity, suspicious beauty
authority and tenderness
you were, are, and will be
the fatherliest father that could ever exist
by far
and not a perfect one
but one who, with his innate
overprotection
from his own absent father
embraces the complexity
of three women who, fragile
tiny inhabitants of small bodies
overflow with your humor
and constant love
your caresses
extreme concern
attention
like an alarm that never stops ringing
but a silence that accompanies
even through empty streets of Europe
contradictions and emotions
tenderness and authority
temperance and intensity
dualities that embrace me
with your thin
and dark body
with the few long hairs
you have left
and your faded beard.
I imagine Mom’s life without you
another tearing
of an already torn soul
you ask her to find refuge
in those friends
you give instructions on how to pay the bills
dates with exact deadlines
to meet
pure mathematics
innate rationality
you ask her to plant flowers
and fruits
you ask her to continue,
because you will continue with her.
**
Promise me that you will take care of us
promise me that you will visit us
in the form of violet light
just before waking
and in the blue hour just after
putting on my sweater
to hug and caress
who knows who tomorrow
will accompany me
in Berlin beds covered in cat hair
on Portuguese beaches smelling of the sea
in Italian lakes smelling of pasta
in visits to the home of origin with the vastness of the mountain range
in dreams of abstract chromatism
where I hear only your laughter
your bad jokes
and your quirks about absurd things
like the sound of a horn
or how incoherent society seems
while watching some random national channel.
Promise me that you will inhabit with Mom
every space where she decides to move
every cm of her body
will be protected with you
that you will allow her to live your dreams, her dreams
accompanied, surrounded by your energy
through you, with you.
just like those times when the two of you
asleep in the car
looked closely at the stars
without caring about inhabiting a plot of land without a house
imagining a present and future facing the sea
endless love letters
from Santiago to Villa Alemana
from Villa Alemana to Santiago
undeniable romance
cheap and profound poetry
exercises in manifestation.
Promise me that you will guide us
that you will take imaginary airplanes
or fly by extending your long arms
and walk with me through streets
ending in strasse
Parks of West Germany
Treptower Park, Tempelhofer
Salvador Allende strasse
to all those places we once walked through
embraced in winter
with frozen hands
piled together in a pocket
of dark jackets.
Promise me that you will never again
avoid my gaze
out of shame at disappearing
at never being here again
perhaps because that imaginary
is improbable, impossible
Even now that you are supposed not to be here
and people repeat it
with words that wear themselves out
that your body has vanished
and I see it in a corner of the house
curled up inside a chest
of about 25 x 10 cm
a size that represents
not even the slightest part
of your infinity
That imaginary that you are not here
improbable
impossible.
Dad,
I don’t know how to say goodbye to you
if deep down
my selfishness
wants to keep you here
and it is only a body
I know
but it is the body
that gave me life
the body that gave Mom
the deepest and most beautiful
most honest love that inhabits me
that is inherited, that is carried
your legacy is not only intellectual
nor political
your legacy
is an ode to love
sincere
genuine
to romanticism
to love
to compassion
to constancy and construction.
I have read with attention
the letters between the two of you
and the poems written in cursive
in that intense love that characterizes you
A way of loving
that I never knew
your legacy
is that love
intense
that overflows
that crosses cities
and years of waiting
it is the family
that you gave us
that you never had
but that you imagined and created
with the patience of a father
a father so fatherly.
Our souls overflow
between screams and tears
a pain in the chest
the kind they gave you recently
with your departure-not-departure
it is absurd
that the heart hurts
and every limb of the body
and you will have to
summon strength
to be patient with us
so that this pain soaked into the bones
may one day transform
little by little
into joy and tranquility
into the happiness of having had each other
into the pride of having lived each other.
You used to say that
after fifty,
life was a privilege
a gift
and you lived it that way
Will you have had things left to live?
For my part
I promise to write you
cheap poems
that will win grants
and open calls
that will be published and printed
in little books
that will adorn bookstores
and that you will read sitting
taking in the sun
hand in hand
invisible
embraced with Mom
laughing with my sister
embracing—perhaps—possible grandchildren
restless with their small bodies
cats and dogs
while my grandmother
—also dead—
prepares in the kitchen
a glass of water
with three tablespoons of sugar
to contain us once again
and say with certainty:
that everything will be alright.
