Problems of Translation: Problems of Language

Dedicated to Myriam Díaz-Diocaretz 1 I turn to my Rand McNally Atlas. Europe appears right after the Map of the World. All of Italy can be seen page 9. Half of Chile page 29. I take out my ruler. In global perspective Italy amounts to less than half an inch. Chile measures more than an inch and a quarter of an inch. Approximately Chile is as long as China is wide: Back to the Atlas: Chunk of China page 17. All of France page 5: As we say in New York: Who do France and Italy know at Rand McNally? 2 I see the four mountains in Chile higher than any mountain of North America. I see Ojos del Salado the highest. I see Chile unequivocal as crystal thread. I see the Atacama Desert dry in Chile more than the rest of the world is dry. I see Chile dissolving into water. I do not see what keeps the blue land of Chile out of blue water. I do not see the hand of Pablo Neruda on the blue land. 3 As the plane flies flat to the trees below Brazil below Bolivia below five thousand miles below my Brooklyn windows and beside the shifted Pacific waters welled away from the Atlantic at Cape Horn La Isla Negra that is not an island La Isla Negra that is not black is stone and stone of Chile feeding clouds to color scale and undertake terrestrial forms of everything unspeakable 4 In your country how do you say copper for my country? 5 Blood rising under the Andes and above the Andes blood spilling down the rock corrupted by the amorality of so much space that leaves such little trace of blood rising to the irritated skin the face of the confession far from home: I confess I did not resist interrogation. I confess that by the next day I was no longer sure of my identity. I confess I knew the hunger. I confess I saw the guns. I confess I was afraid. I confess I did not die. 6 What you Americans call a boycott of the junta? Who will that feed? 7 Not just the message but the sound. 8 Early morning now and I remember corriendo a la madrugada from a different English poem, I remember from the difficulties of the talk an argument athwart the wine the dinner and the dancing meant to welcome you you did not understand the commonplace expression of my heart: the truth is in the life la verdad de la vida