Analect 2.505x

1 June 2005. Begins June...gray, lovely...

"Si me voy de mayo a junio, si vuelvo de junio a mayo no me cabe en los dos puños toda la furia que traigo..." (If I go from May to June, if I return from June to May, even in my two fists I can't carry all my fury...)

Armando Tejada Gómez, an enchanted figure in a dark suit, declaiming his "Oration to the Flag,"

Quédate en el cielo, amor,
no bajes.
Aquí abajo, los grises
son tan grises
que, de algún modo gris,
van a ultrajarte.

Y sos tan linda allá,
tan nomeolvides,
-simple ademán de madre
por el aire-
que si caes, amor,
con la ternura
conque caen las hojas
de los árboles;
si llegas a caer,
acaso nunca
vuelvas a ser tan cielo
ni tan madre.

Déjanos a nosotros,
los humildes,
los que nunca te usamos
ni abusamos de tu inmenso
silencio planetario,
que cuidemos la altura
donde habitas,
celestemente hermosa,
como el aire.

Déjanos a nosotros.
De los otros,
es piadoso no hablarte.

Buenos Aires, 1977 Armando Tejada Gómez, Oración a la bandera


* * *

Oration to the Flag

(Stay up there in the sky, my love
don't come down.
Here below, the grays
are so very gray
that, in some gray way,
they will mistreat you.

And you are so beautiful up there,
so don't-forget-me,
the simple gesture of a mother
in the air--
for if you fall, my love
with the tenderness
with which fall the leaves
of the trees;
if you come to fall,
perhaps never
will you return to be such a sky
nor such a mother.

Leave it to us,
the humble ones,
those, we, who never use you
nor abuse your immense
planetary silence,
that we might guard the heights
that you inhabit,
celestially beautiful,
like the air.

Leave it to us.
Of the others,
to you it is pious not to speak.

Buenos Aires, 1977, Armando Tejada Gómez)