IMAGINED STORIES: Più avanti

Estoy recorriendo su casa, don Pedro.

I’m touring your house, Don Pedro.

No, no la de San Justo, donde nació, sino la que ahora es un museo en su honor, en La Plata: la de su muerte. Lo hago con un profundo respeto que se parece a la veneración; y no crea usted que es uno de esos ritos paganos, pura curiosidad pasajera o turística, sino un acto necesario, como si me prosternase ante la admiración que le profeso.

No, not the one in San Justo, where he was born, but the one that is now a museum in his honor, in La Plata: the one of his death. I do it with a deep respect that is similar to veneration; And do not believe that it is one of those pagan rites, pure passing or tourist curiosity, but rather a necessary act, as if I were prostrating myself before the admiration that I profess for you.

Hay tanta dignidad aquí dentro, dignidad y pasión ante el dolor que no se ha dormido.

There is so much dignity in here, dignity and passion in the face of pain that has not fallen asleep.

-No te des por vencido ni aun vencido,/ no te sientas esclavo ni aun esclavo;/ trémulo de pavor piénsate bravo/ y arremete feroz, ya mal herido.

-Do not give up, even if you are defeated,/ do not feel like a slave or even a slave;/ trembling with fear, think yourself brave/ and attack fiercely, already badly wounded.

¡Piu avanti, querido poeta de mi desorientada, lejana adolescencia! ¡Piu avanti, don Pedro!

Piu avanti, dear poet of my disoriented, distant adolescence! Piu avanti, Don Pedro!

¿O podría llamarlo Almafuerte, como lo hicieron legiones de desheredados, gente que dudaba de su destino y halló en sus versos enérgicos, duros y compasivos a un tiempo, el campanazo visceral de su despertar?

Or could I call him Almafuerte, as legions of disinherited did, people who doubted their destiny and found in his energetic, hard and compassionate verses at the same time, the visceral bell of their awakening?

He llegado a una sala, sobre el oeste de la casona; es una habitación que preside un retrato suyo, muy cercano a su final.

I have arrived at a room, on the west of the house; It is a room presided over by a portrait of him, very close to its end.

Ahí se sedujo -¿fue apenas un momento?- la ensoñación: que me digan loco, qué importa, pero usted me miró, con una mirada surcada por cicatrices del alma, y yo sentí que me susurraba:

There you were seduced – was it just a moment? – by daydreaming: that they call me crazy, what does it matter, but you looked at me, with a look marked by scars of the soul, and I felt that you were whispering to me:

-Quise ser pintor y no pude; la beca que lo hubiera permitido me la negaron. Entonces muy joven, sin título, con la honradez del autodidacta vocacional, me dediqué a la enseñanza, a la poesía y al periodismo. En las escuelas por las que pasé fui feliz y, a la vez, un desesperado: la felicidad provenía del contacto puro con los niños; la desesperación, por la pobreza y el desamparo al que la sociedad los sometía. Nunca quise abandonarlos, nunca, pero…

-I wanted to be a painter and I couldn’t; The scholarship that would have allowed it was denied to me. Then, very young, without a degree, with the honesty of a vocational self-taught person, I dedicated myself to teaching, poetry and journalism. In the schools I went through I was happy and, at the same time, desperate: happiness came from pure contact with children; despair, due to the poverty and helplessness to which society subjected them. I never wanted to abandon them, never, but…

-Ten el tesón del clavo enmohecido/ que ya viejo y ruin vuelve a ser clavo;/ no la cobarde estupidez del pavo/ que amaina su plumaje al primer ruido.

-Have the tenacity of the moldy nail/ that, now old and mean, becomes a nail again;/ not the cowardly stupidity of the turkey/ that subsides its plumage at the first sound.

Sí, Almafuerte, noble sacerdote laico de infancia penosa y abandonos, su prédica feroz contra los gobernantes lo echó de escuelas de Buenos Aires, Mercedes, Salto, Chacabuco, cuando el presidente era Sarmiento, que debió ser su ladero moral. Y el cierre tristísimo de su frustración: aquella tarde en Trenque Lauquen, cuando velaron en el único salón de clases a uno de sus amados alumnos y usted, parado al lado del féretro, no pudo despedirlo porque se quebró en un llanto incontenible.

Yes, Almafuerte, a noble lay priest with a painful childhood and abandonment, his fierce preaching against the rulers expelled him from schools in Buenos Aires, Mercedes, Salto, Chacabuco, when the president was Sarmiento, who should have been his moral supporter. And the very sad closing of your frustration: that afternoon in Trenque Lauquen, when they held a vigil in the only classroom for one of your beloved students and you, standing next to the coffin, could not say goodbye because you broke down into uncontrollable tears.

Oh, el ensueño otra vez me abraza: siento su murmullo tan, tan cercano a mi oído que parece un aliento:

Oh, the dream embraces me again: I feel its murmur so, so close to my ear that it seems like a breath:

-Quise resistir, combatir. Ningún rezo. Sí mi imprecación. Acaso alzando lo que me quedase de voz para la venganza de los marginados.

-I wanted to resist, fight. No prayer. Yes my imprecation. Perhaps raising what was left of my voice for the revenge of the marginalized.

-Procede como Dios que nunca llora;/ o como Lucifer que nunca reza;/ o como el robledal, cuya grandeza/ necesita del agua y no la implora…

-Proceeds like God who never cries;/ or like Lucifer who never prays;/ or like the oak grove, whose greatness/ needs water and does not implore it…

Siéntase tranquilo con su ardiente conciencia, don Pedro, Almafuerte: cerró sus ojos atormentados tras pelear todas las batallas y negar los honores tardíos que quisieron enamorar a su ética para sobornarla. Pocos poetas, si hubo alguno, gritaron con tal fuerza su demanda de justicia mirando al cielo. Ah, sí, dura pelea con Dios y todo en lo que quería creer.

Feel at ease with your burning conscience, Don Pedro, Almafuerte: you closed your tormented eyes after fighting all the battles and denying the late honors that wanted to enamor your ethics to bribe you. Few poets, if any, shouted their demand for justice so loudly while looking to the sky. Ah yes, tough fight with God and everything I wanted to believe in.

¡Qué pena que no haya sabido que este poema, de lo mejor de su romanticismo a destiempo, en años cínicamente llamados modernistas, aunque su pluma siempre fue piadosa ante el sufrimiento ajeno, haya sido incluido entre los “Siete sonetos reparadores” del Cantar los cantares!

What a pity that he did not know that this poem, the best of his untimely romanticism, in years cynically called modernist, although his pen was always pious in the face of the suffering of others, has been included among the “Seven reparative sonnets” of the Cantar los songs!

Quizás no le hubiese importado. ¡Si ya había vociferado su anatema contra las “absurdas leyes de tarima”!

Maybe he wouldn’t have cared. If he had already shouted his anathema against the “absurd platform laws”!

Siento el imperativo de decirle: quítese esos lentes redondos de armazón de plata y descanse en paz, aun sabiendo yo que le queda una exhortación a quienes, cariñosamente, llamó “la chusma de mis amores”:

I feel the imperative to tell you: take off those round silver-rimmed glasses and rest in peace, even though I know that you have one exhortation left for those whom you affectionately called “the rabble of my loves”:

-¡Que muerda y vocifere vengadora,/ ya rodando en el polvo, tu cabeza!

-Let your head bite and scream vengeance,/ already rolling in the dust!

(*) PIU AVANTI es, probablemente, el más conocido de los poemas de Pedro Bonifacio Palacios, Almafuerte, vate santafesino de inclasificable estilo que murió el 28 de febrero de 1917, y tuvo fortísima influencia en las juventudes de tiempos posteriores. En su homenaje, esté donde esté.

(*) PIU AVANTI is probably the best known of the poems by Pedro Bonifacio Palacios, Almafuerte, a Santa Fe poet of unclassifiable style who died on February 28, 1917, and had a very strong influence on the youth of later times. In his tribute, wherever he is.