Monday, April 25, 2011

Gonzalo Rojas, RIP

Skinny Chile, land of poets—and just free of Pinochet when I lived there, in 1991. So its poets were finally returning, which for Chileans meant the return of their national soul.

Foremost among them: the impeccable Gonzalo Rojas.

I was one of the students in his class at the University of Concepción. Like everyone else—except, maybe, my friend Paul Marchant, who talked about Sr. Rojas all the time—I had no idea how fortunate we were. Looking back now, it's perfectly clear: we were taking a class on Latin American poetry from one of Latin America's—one of the world's—great poets.

Every week he gave us a firsthand account of the birth, triumph, exile, and fragile survival of Chilean lyric poetry in the 20th century. Only years later did I appreciate that we were talking about a body of work that's unsurpassed in the recent history of world poetry, given its influence, variety, popularity, and beauty.

But coming from him, most of the poems were the beautiful songs of his friends. He read them that way, elegantly dressed (always), his plump lips shaping the words with an attentiveness and love for the sound of Spanish that I found both enviable and frightening. He was doing a deeper thing; he was, I thought, being a poet. I was worrying—maybe I'm being too hard on myself—about catching the bus to the beach.

His striking wife, Hilda, her black hair to her waist, sometimes sat in on his lectures. She died, I heard, not long after we left, although she was much younger than him and seemed, at the time, to be healthier. Now, at 93, he's gone, too, but not:


Retrato de mujer

Siempre estará la noche, mujer, para mirarte cara a cara,
sola en tu espejo, libre de marido, desnuda
con la exacta y terrible realidad del gran vértigo
que te destruye. Siempre vas a tener tu noche y tu cuchillo,
y el frívolo teléfono para escuchar mi adiós de un solo tajo.

Te juré no escribirte. Por eso estoy llamándote en el aire
para decirte nada, como dice el vacío: nada, nada,
sino lo mismo y siempre lo mismo de lo mismo
que nunca me oyes, eso que no me entiendes nunca,
aunque las venas te arden de eso que estoy diciendo.

Ponte el vestido rojo que le viene a tu boca y a tu sangre,
y quémame en el último cigarrillo del miedo
al gran amor, y vete descalza por el aire que viniste
con la herida visible de tu belleza. Lástima
de la que llora y llora en la tormenta.

No te me mueras. Voy a pintarte tu rostro en un relámpago
tal como eres: dos ojos para ver lo visible y lo invisible,
una nariz arcángel y una boca animal, y una sonrisa
que me perdona, y algo sagrado y sin edad que vuela en tu frente,
mujer, y me estremece, porque tu rostro es rostro del Espíritu.

Vienes y vas, y adoras al mar que te arrebata con su espuma,
y te quedas inmóvil, oyendo que te llamo en el abismo
de la noche, y me besas lo mismo que una ola.
Enigma fuiste. Enigma serás. No volarás
conmigo. Aquí mujer, te dejo tu figura.

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