Downfall
Translated by Elwin Wirkala
My grain of salt on this harsh, noble sphere:
or am I just hallucinating fear,
and this gratuitous image just to cope,
as centuries pass, with my old Mexican hope?
Reasons without reason: mind and soul,
not just a foreign hatred, but my own—
what use is hate, can hatred edify,
and Cains slay Abels still in legacy?
Light and shade torment; the heard's unheard,
reality, perhaps, needs antipodes
like this erect one striding back and forth—
I don’t like hate, but hate that carrion bird
who weaves foreboding in a sapphire sky,
and every circle dooms humanity.
About the translator: Elwin Wirkala, in the course of Peace Corps service in Brazil and subsequent two decades living in South America, developed a poetry translation hobby that—along with readings in the areas of philosophy, psychology, and laymen-oriented scientific literature, a little fiction and lots of poetry, and, last but not least, his family—constitutes his main source of joy.
