"Las letras lloran, ha muerto Benedetti"

"Un virtuoso de las letras ha muerto. ¡Viva el Poeta!"

Entre siempre y jamás
Mario Benedetti

Entre siempre y jamás
el rumbo el mundo oscilan
y ya que amor y odio
nos vuelven categóricos
pongamos etiquetas
de rutina y tanteo

-jamás volveré a verte
-unidos para siempre
-no morirán jamás
-siempre y cuando me admitan
-jamás de los jamases
-(y hasta la fe dialéctica
de) por siempre jamás
-etcétera etcétera

de acuerdo
pero en tanto
que un siempre abre un futuro
y un jamás se hace un abismo
mi siempre puede ser
jamás de otros tantos

siempre es una meseta
con borde con final
jamás es una oscura
caverna de imposibles
y sin embargo a veces
nos ayuda un indicio

que cada siempre lleva
su hueso de jamás
que los jamases tienen
arrebatos de siempres

así
incansablemente
insobornablemente
entre siempre y jamás
fluye la vida insomne
pasan los grandes ojos
abiertos de la vida.
Mario Benedetti.


************



کی می داند بعد کجا باشم
یا کِی به داستان ام اهمیت می دهند
کی می داند از چه راهی ممکن است دوباره اوج بگیرم
و راه ساده ای را نخواهم گرفت که دنبال اش کنم
نگران نباش، من بازنده ی این قمار نیستم
من نمی خواهم به خاطر داشتن را با فراموشی خال کوبی کنم
چیزهای زیادی از گفتن وا مانده اند، نگفته مانده اند
و انگورهای زیادی که دهان مان را پر نمی کنند
نگران نباش , من متقاعد شدم
خوشی، احتیاجی نیست سنگ دیگری پرت کند
دارم می آیم
دارم می آیم-

ماریو بندتی

*******************

Today is a sad day not only for Latin American literature, but also for the world literature in general, for it has lost one of its most genuine and incomparable writer, poet, and human rights activist, the Uruguayan maestro, Mario Benedetti. On a personal note, few years back while in Mexico, at the insistence of a Mexican friend, I reluctantly picked up a collection of Benedetti's poems [I had no idea back then who Benedetti was]. As I started to read and grasp the depth of his poetic convictions, Benedetti not only opened my eyes to the harsh realities of injustices, nostalgia, and exile, but also left me in awe with the force of his poetic criticisms and indestructible thirst for justice.

Benedetti's poetic expressions and the "Poetry with purpose" approaches resemble the poetic style of the great contemporary Persian poet, Ahmad Shamlu. Poets of indomitable spirits and socially conscious, both Shamlu and Benedetti fought with their pens against injustice, oppression, and misery in their respective oppressed societies, Iran under megalomaniac Shah's dictatorship, and Uruguay under savage Military Juntas. It was Shamlu and Benedetti's incessant demands for justice, freedom, democracy, and rule of law that shook the foundations of dictatorships, and once again nailed the unequivocal truth to the coffins of "Men of Power" that : The pen of a writer and poet is thousands times more mightier than the sword of a dictator.
Rest in peace maestro, rest in peace Benedetti. The poet is you.

The indomitable Iranian poet, Ahmad Shamlu:

Dry path, all through life
Having been born with a cry
In a hatred
Turning on itself.
Thus was the
Great absence.
Thus was
The story of the ruin.
If only freedom
Could sing a song
Small, smaller even ...
Than the throat of a bird.

*********

Patria Inocente/ Innocent Fatherland
by Mario Benedetti
My Translation


Some as invaders
others as invaded
which fatherland has not lost
its innocence?
But then, what sense does it make
to be an innocent fatherland?
What importance does it have
to be the faint-hearted
provincial frontier of ingenuity?

Only fatherlands that lose
their innocence
can recognize their enemies.
No!
I'm not claiming an innocent fatherland.
No!
I'm searching for a unique fatherland
capable of declaring itself:
Guilty of innocence!