“El Retorno Maléfico”

“El retorno maléfico” by Ramón López Velarde, written in Mexico around 1910.

It would be better not to return to the village,
to the subverted Eden that is silent
in the mutilation of shrapnel.

Even the one-handed ash trees,
the dignitaries with their plump domes,
the complaints of the tower must roll
riddled with bullets in the winds of the frond.

And the riflemen engraved on the lime
of all the walls
from the spectral village,
black and dire maps,
because the prodigal son read in them
upon returning to its threshold
in a night of evil,
by the light of a wick
his hope dashed.

When the rough rusty key
twist the creaking lock,
in the old cloister
from the hall, the two modest ones
plaster medallions,
narrowing the narcotic eyelids,
They will look at each other and say, "What is that?"

And I will enter with sojourner's feet
to the ominous courtyard
in which there is a self-absorbed wellhead,
with a leather bucket
dripping its categorical drop
like a plaintive refrain.

If the inexorable, cheerful and invigorating sun,
makes the catechumenal sources boil
in which my chronic sleep was bathed;
if the ant is busy;
if the roofs resonate and become tired
from the turtledove's craws the call
that buzzes and buzzes among the cobwebs;
My thirst for love will be like a ring
embedded in the slab of a tomb.

The new swallows, renewing
with its new potter's picks
early nests;
under the famous opal
of monastic sunsets,
the crying of recent years
by the abundant forbidden udder
of the cow, ruminant and pharaonic,
that intimidates the child;
bell tower with a novel bell;
renovated altars;
loving love
of even pairs;
girls' courtships
fresh and humble like ordinary cabbages,
and they give the hand through the wicket
in the light of dramatic lanterns;
some young lady
who sings on some piano
some old aria;
the policeman who blows the whistle...
...And an intimate reactionary sadness.