Residence on Earth

by Pablo Neruda

  Los que en la gruta griega han escupido,

  la estalactita de cristal truncado

  y su clásico azul enrarecido,

  ahora dónde están, Stalingrado?

  Los que España quemaron y rompieron

  dejando el corazón encadenado

  de esa madre de encinos y guerreros,

  se pudren a tus pies, Stalingrado.

  Los que en Holanda, tulipanes y agua

  salpicaron de lodo ensangrentado

  y esparcieron el látigo y la espada

  ahora duermen en Stalingrado.

  Los que en la noche blanca de Noruega

  con un aullido de chacal soltado

  quemaron esa helada primavera

  enmudecieron en Stalingrado.

  Honor a ti por lo que el aire trae,

  lo que se ha de cantar y lo cantado,

  honor para tus madres y tus hijos

  y tus nietos, Stalingrado.

  Honor al combatiente de la bruma,

  honor al Comisario y al soldado,

  honor al cielo detrás de tu luna,

  honor al sol de Stalingrado.

  Guárdame un trozo de violenta espuma,

  guárdame un rifle, guárdame un arado,

  y que los pongan en mi sepultura

  con una espiga roja de tu estado,

  para que sepan, si hay alguna duda,

  que he muerto amándote y que me has amado,

  y si no he combatido en tu cintura

  dejo en tu honor esta granada oscura,

  este canto de amor a Stalingrado.

  A NEW LOVE SONG TO STALINGRAD*

  I wrote about the weather and about the water,

  I described mourning and its purple character,

  I wrote about the sky and the apple,

  now I write about Stalingrad.

  The bride already tucked away with her handkerchief

  the thunderbolt of my loving love,

  now my heart is on the ground,

  in the smoke and light of Stalingrad.

  I touched with my hands the shirt

  of the blue and defeated dusk:

  now I touch the dawn of life

  being born with the sun of Stalingrad.

  I know that the old transitory scribbling

  youth, like a leather-bound swan,

  unbinds his proverbial grief

  because of my love cry to Stalingrad.

  I put my heart where I choose.

  I do not feed upon weary paper

  dressed in ink and inkwell.

  I was born to sing to Stalingrad.

  My voice was with your great dead

  smashed to bits against your own walls,

  my voice sounded like bell and wind

  watching you die, Stalingrad.

  Now American fighters

  white and dark as pomegranates

  kill the serpent in the desert.

  You are alone no more, Stalingrad.

  France returns to the old barricades

  with a banner of fury raised

  above freshly dried tears.

  You are alone no more, Stalingrad.

  And the great lions of England

  flying over the stormy sea

  dig their claws into the brown earth.

  You are alone no more, Stalingrad.

  Today under your mountains of punishment

  your dead are not buried alone:

  trembling is the flesh of the dead

  who touched your brow, Stalingrad.

  Smashed are the invading hands,

  shattered the soldier’s eyes,

  filled with blood are the shoes

  that trampled your door, Stalingrad.

  Your blue steel built of pride,

  your hair of crowned planets,

  your bulwark of shared loaves,

  your dark frontier, Stalingrad.

  Your fatherland of hammers and laurels,

  the blood upon your snowy splendor,

  the gaze of Stalin at the snow

  stained with your blood, Stalingrad.

  The decorations that your dead

  have placed upon the pierced breast

  of the earth, and the shudder

  of death and life, Stalingrad.

  The deep savor that you bring again

  to the heart of stricken man

  with the branch of red captains

  come from your blood, Stalingrad.

  The hope that breaks out in gardens

  like the flower of the hoped-for tree,

  the page engraved with guns,

  the letters of light, Stalingrad.

  The tower that you conceive on the height,

  the bloody altars of stone,

  the defenders of your ripe age,

  the sons of your flesh, Stalingrad.

  The burning eagles of your stones,

  the metals suckled by your soul,

  the farewells of enormous tears

  and the waves of love, Stalingrad.

  The bones of murderers deeply wounded,

  the shut eyelids of invaders,

  and the conquerors fleeing

  behind your lightningflash, Stalingrad.

  Those who humbled the curve of the Arch

  and pierced the waters of the Seine

  with the slave’s consent

  were stopped at Stalingrad.

  Those who over beautiful Prague in tears,

  over the mute and betrayed,

  passed trampling their wounds

  died in Stalingrad.

  Those who have spat upon the Greek grotto,

  truncated the crystal stalactite

  and rarefied its classic blue,

  now where are they, Stalingrad?

  Those who burned and shattered Spain,

  leaving in chains the heart

  of that mother of oak trees and warriors,

  rot at your feet, Stalingrad.

  Those who in Holland spattered tulips

  and water with bloody mud

  and spread the scourge and the sword

  now sleep in Stalingrad.

  Those who in the white night of Norway

  with the howl of an unleashed jackal

  burned that frozen spring

  were silent in Stalingrad.

  Honor to you for what the air brings,

  what is to be sung and what has been sung,

  honor for your mothers and your sons

  and your grandsons, Stalingrad.

  Honor to the fighter of the mist,

  honor to the commissar and to the soldier,

  honor to the sky behind your moon,

  honor to the sun of Stalingrad.

  Keep for me a fleck of violent spume,

  keep for me a rifle, keep for me a plough,

  and have them placed upon my tomb

  with a red flower from your land,

  so that they may know, if there is any doubt,

  that I died loving you and that you loved me,

  and if I have not fought at your side,

  I leave behind in your honor this dark pomegranate,

  this song of love to Stalingrad.

  * * *

  *Written as a counterblast to the objections to political poetry voiced by some young Mexican intellectuals.—D.D.W.

  TINA MODOTTI HA MUERTO

  Tina Modotti, hermana, no duermes, no, no duermes.

  Tal vez tu corazón oye crecer la rosa

  de ayer, la última rosa de ayer, la nueva rosa.

  Descansa dulcemente, hermana.

  La nueva rosa es tuya, la nueva tierra es tuya:

  te has puesto un nuevo traje de semilla profunda

  y tu suave silencio se llena de raíces.

  No dormirás en vano, hermana.

  Puro es tu dulce nombre, pura es tu frágil vida.

  De abeja, sombra, fuego, nieve, silencio, espuma,

  de acero, línea, polen se construyó

  tu férrea, tu
delgada estructura.

  El chacal a la alhaja de tu cuerpo dormido

  aún asoma la pluma y el alma ensangrentada

  como si tú pudieras, hermana, levantarte,

  sonriendo sobre el lodo.

  A mi patria te llevo para que no te toquen,

  a mi patria de nieve para que a tu pureza

  no llegue el asesino, ni el chacal, ni el vendido:

  allí estarás tranquila.

  Oyes un paso, un paso lleno de pasos, algo

  grande desde la estepa, desde el Don, desde el frío?

  Oyes un paso firme de soldado en la nieve?

  Hermana, son tus pasos.

  Ya pasarán un día por tu pequeña tumba

  antes de que las rosas de ayer se desbaraten,

  ya pasarán a ver los de un día, mañana,

  donde está ardiendo tu silencio.

  Un mundo marcha al sitio donde tú ibas, hermana.

  Avanzan cada día los cantos de tu boca

  en la boca del pueblo glorioso que tú amabas.

  Tu corazón era valiente.

  En las viejas cocinas de tu patria, en las rutas

  polvorientas, algo se dice y pasa,

  algo vuelve a la llama de tu dorado pueblo,

  algo despierta y canta.

  Son los tuyos, hermana: los que hoy dicen tu nombre,

  los que de todas partes, del agua y de la tierra,

  con tu nombre otros nombres callamos y decimos.

  Porque el fuego no muere.

  TINA MODOTTI IS DEAD

  Tina Modotti, sister, you do not sleep, no, you do not sleep.

  Perhaps your heart hears the rose of yesterday

  growing, the last rose of yesterday, the new rose.

  Rest gently, sister.

  The new rose is yours, the new earth is yours:

  you have put on a new dress of deep seed

  and your soft silence is filled with roots.

  You shall not sleep in vain, sister.

  Pure is your gentle name, pure is your fragile life.

  Of bee, shadow, fire, snow, silence, foam,

  of steel, line, pollen was built your tough,

  your slender structure.

  The jackal at the jewel of your sleeping body

  still shows the white feather and the bloody soul

  as if you, sister, could rise up,

  smiling above the mud.

  To my country I take you so that they will not touch you,

  to my snow country so that your purity

  will be far from the assassin, the jackal, the Judas:

  there you will be at peace.

  Do you hear a step, a step-filled step, something

  huge from the great plain, from the Don, from the cold?

  Do you hear the firm step of a soldier upon the snow?

  Sister, they are your steps.

  They will pass one day by your little tomb

  before yesterday’s roses are withered,

  the steps of tomorrow will pass by to see

  where your silence is burning.

  A world marches to the place where you were going, sister.

  The songs of your mouth advance each day

  in the mouths of the glorious people that you loved.

  Your heart was brave.

  In the old kitchens of your country, on the dusty

  roads, something is said and passes on,

  something returns to the flame of your golden people,

  something awakes and sings.

  They are your people, sister: those who today speak your name,

  we who from everywhere, from the water and the land,

  with your name leave unspoken and speak other names.

  Because fire does not die.

  7 DE NOVIEMBRE

  ODA A UN DÍA DE VICTORIAS

  Este doble aniversario, este día, esta noche,

  hallarán un mundo vacío, encontrarán un torpe

  hueco de corazones desolados?

  No, más que un día con horas,

  es un paso de espejos y de espadas,

  es una doble flor que golpea la noche

  hasta arrancar el alba de su cepa nocturna!

  Día de España que del Sur

  vienes, valiente día

  de plumaje férreo,

  llegas de allí, del ultimo que cae con la

  frente quebrada

  con tu cifra de fuego todavía en la boca!

  Y vas allí con nuestro

  recuerdo insumergido:

  tú fuiste el día, tú eres

  la lucha, tú sostienes

  la columna invisible, el ala

  de donde va a nacer, con tu número, el vuelo!

  Siete, Noviembre, en dónde vives?

  En dónde arden los pétalos, en dónde tu silbido

  dice al hermano: sube!, y al caído: levántate!

  En dónde tu laurel crece desde la sangre

  y atraviesa la pobre carne del hombre y sube

  a construir el héroe?

  En ti, otra vez, Union,

  en ti, otra vez, hermana de los pueblos del mundo,

  patria pura y soviética. Vuelve a ti tu semilla

  grande como un follaje derramado en la tierra!

  No hay llanto para ti, Pueblo, en tu lucha!

  Todo ha de ser de hierro, todo ha de andar y herir,

  todo, hasta el impalpable silencio, hasta la duda,

  hasta la misma duda que con mano de invierno

  nos busque el corazón para helarlo y hundirlo,

  todo, hasta la alegría, todo sea de hierro

  para ayudarte, hermana y madre, en la victoria!

  Que el que reniega hoy sea escupido!

  Que el miserable hoy tenga su castigo en la hora

  de las horas, en la sangre total,

  que el cobarde retorne

  a las tinieblas, que los laureles pasen

  al valiente, al valiente camino, a la valiente nave

  de nieve y sangre que defiende el mundo!

  Yo te saludo, Union Soviética, en este día,

  con humildad: soy escritor y poeta.

  Mi padre era ferroviario: siempre fuimos pobres.

  Estuve ayer contigo, lejos, en mi pequeño

  país de grandes lluvias. Allí

  creció tu nombre caliente, ardiendo en el pecho del pueblo,

  hasta tocar el alto cielo de mi república!

  Hoy pienso en ellos, todos están contigo!

  De taller a taller, de casa a casa,

  vuela tu nombre como un ave roja!

  Alabados sean tus héroes, y cada gota

  de tu sangre, alabada

  sea la desbordante marejada de pechos

  que defienden tu pura y orgullosa morada!

  Alabado sea el heroico y amargo

  pan que te nutre, mientras las puertas del tiempo se abren

  para que tu ejército de pueblo y de hierro marche cantando

  entre ceniza y páramo, sobre los asesinos,

  a plantar una rosa grande como la luna

  en la fìna y divina tierra de la victoria!

  7TH OF NOVEMBER:

  ODE TO A DAY OF VICTORIES

  This double anniversary,* this day, this night,

  will they find an empty world, will they meet a crude

  hollow of desolate hearts?

  No, more than a day with hours,

  it is a procession of mirrors and swords,

  it is a double flower that beats upon the night

  until it tears daybreak from its night roots!

  Day of Spain coming from the

  south, valiant day

  of iron plumage,

  you arrive from there, from the last man that falls with

  shattered brow

  and with your fiery number still in his mouth!

  And you go there with our

  memory unsubmerged:

  you were the day, you are

  the struggle, you support

  the
invisible column, the wing

  from which flight, with your number, will be born!

  Seven, November, where do you dwell?

  Where do the petals burn, where does your whisper

  say to the brother: go up! and to the fallen: arise!

  Where does your laurel grow from the blood

  and cross the frail flesh of man and go up

  to fashion the hero?

  In you, once more, Union,

  in you, once more, sister of the peoples of the world,

  pure and Soviet fatherland. To you returns your seed

  in a leafy flood scattered upon the earth!

  There are no tears for you, People, in your struggle!

  All must be of iron, all must march and wound,

  all, even impalpable silence, even doubt,

  even the very doubt that with wintry hand

  seeks our hearts to freeze them and sink them,

  all, even joy, all must be of iron

  to help you, sister and mother, in victory!

  May today’s renegade be spat upon!

  May the wretch today meet his punishment in the hour

  of hours, in the total blood,

  may the coward return

  to darkness, may the laurels go to

  the valiant, the valiant highway, the valiant ship

  of snow and blood that defends the world!

  I greet you, Soviet Union, on this day,

  with humility: I am a writer and a poet.

  My father was a railroad worker: we were always poor.

  Yesterday I was with you, far off, in my little

  country of great rains. There your name grew

  hot, burning in the people’s breasts

  until it touched my country’s lofty sky!