Raúl Zurita

XXXVIII Over the cliffs of the hillside: the sun then below in the valley the earth covered with flowers Zurita enamored friend takes in the sun of photosynthesis Zurita will now never again be friend since 7 P.M. it's been getting dark Night is the insane asylum of the plants XLII Enclosed with the four walls of a bathroom: I looked up at the ceiling and began to clean the walls and the floor the sink   all of it You see: Outside the sky was God and he was sucking at my soul —believe me! I wiped my weeping eyes LVII In the narrow broken bed restless all night like a spent candle lit again I thought I saw Buddha many times At my side I felt a woman's gasp for air but Buddha was only the pillows and the woman is sleeping the eternal dream LXIII Today I dreamed that I was King they were dressing me in black-and-white spotted pelts Today I moo with my head about to fall as the church bells' mournful clanging says that milk goes to market LXXXV They've shaved my head they've dressed me in these gray wool rags —Mom keeps on smoking I am Joan of Arc They catalog me on microfilm XCII The glass is transparent like water Dread of prisms and glass I circle the light so as not to lose myself in them

i.  Let's look then at the Desert of Atacama ii. Let's look at our loneliness in the desert So that desolate before these forms the landscape becomes a cross extended over Chile and the loneliness of my form then sees the redemption of the other forms:   my own Redemption in the Desert iii.  Then who would speak of the redemption of my form iv.  Who would tell of the desert's loneliness So that my form begins to touch your form and your form that other form like that until all of Chile is nothing but one form with open arms:   a long form crowned with thorns v.   Then the Cross will be nothing but the opening arms of my form vi.  We will then be the Crown of Thorns in the Desert vii.  Then   nailed form to form   like a Cross extended over Chile   we will have seen forever the Final Solitary Breath of the Desert of Atacama

Arid plains do not dream No one has ever managed to see Those chimerical pampas i.   The landscapes are convergent and divergent in the Desert of Atacama ii.  Over the convergent and divergent landscape Chile is convergent and divergent in the Desert of Atacama iii.  That's why what's there never was there and if it were to stay where it is it would see its own life turn around until being the chimerical plains   deserted enlightened   fading away like them iv.  And when the convergent and divergent landscapes of the Desert of Atacama unfold themselves all of Chile will have been the life beyond   because unlike Atacama they are already extending themselves like a dream the deserts of our own chimera over there in these plains of hell

Speak of the whistle of Atacama the wind erases like snow the color of that plain i.   The Desert of Atacama soared over infinities of deserts to be there ii.  Like the wind feel it pass whistling through the leaves of the trees iii.  Look at it become transparent faraway   and just accompanied by the wind iv.  But be careful: because if ultimately the Desert of Atacama were not where it should be the whole world would begin to whistle through the leaves of the trees   and when we'd see ourselves in the same never   transparent   whistles in the wind swallowing the color of this pampa