I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.

To harden the earththe rocks took charge:instantlythey grew wings:the rocksthat soared:the survivorsflew upthe lightning bolt,screamed in the night,a watermark,a violet sword,a meteor.The succulentskyhad not only clouds,not only space smelling of oxygen,but an earthly stoneflashing here and therechanged into a dove,changed into a bell,into immensity, into a piercingwind:into a phosphorescent arrow,into salt of the sky.

Soy un poeta sin ningún preceptopero digo, sin lástima y sin pena:no hay asesino bueno en mi concepto.

Yo no me calloPerdone el ciudadano esperanzadomi recuerdo de acciones miserables,que levantan los hombres del pasado.Yo predico un amor inexorable.Y no me importa perro ni persona:sólo el pueblo es en mí considerable:sólo la Patria a mí me condiciona.Pueblo y Patria manejan mi cuidado:Patria y pueblo destinan mis deberesy si logran matar lo levantadopor el pueblo, es mi Patria la que muere.Es ése mi temor y mi agonía.Por eso en el combate nadie espereque se quede sin voz mi poesía.

Deadin front of mecatafalqued kingmy own ocean;oncesappy as a sprung firin the green turmoil,once seedto sea-quake,tidal wave, nowsimplydead remains;in the whole marketyourswas the only shape leftwith purpose or directionin thisjumbled ruinof nature;you area solitary man of waramong these frail vegetables,your flanks and prowblackand slipperyas if you were stilla well-oiled ship of the wind,the onlytruemachineof the sea: unflawed,undefiled,navigating nowthe waters of death

. . . they will say: "The one you love, is not a woman for you, Why do you love her? I think you could find one more beautiful, more serious, more deep, more other . . .

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me.