Valdivia En La Niebla

The river goes upside down, mocking logs and hills
and the water is a calm shadow steering in the silence.*
A seagull (towards Niebla) shouts its winter song
and on the bank the dirty shadow of a dog drowns.

A motor bronco emerges
tearing
a new noise.
Then two
logging convoys.

The entire Valdivia falls asleep in a sweet, thick dream.
Towards Las Ánimas the sawmills hum deafly.
Two lovers share the bridge and the river with their fingers
and a dark guard watches over the avatars of the wind.

And below, in Corral, the night of the sea
drown out a lament
and in their saline heart they float
marine and dead.**

I remain calm with my hands on the oars
and a shiny cigarette bleeding under the hat.

I get tired of looking at the water because your eyes are in it.***
The darkness of the height does not free me from the star.
I don't want to touch your land and I move away into the river,
I don't want to touch the air
and I wrap myself in a thick blanket,
I don't want to bite your name
and I smoke and smoke in silence

but you attack me with everything because in everything
you are living.

The hammers are carving the reeds of your hair.
The wind sings in your mouth,
the river shines in your body,
and in every name that I name
jump yours like a kiss.

But in your crossed chest
through murky and fierce rivers
fleet forgotten in the night
my name
as
a piece of wood

* In the version of the album "Patricio Manns in Chile" the initial y of the phrase is omitted.
** In all versions after 1971 it says: ships and dead
*** In "Song without limits" he says: I don't want to look at the water because your eyes are inside. In "Because I loved you" he says: I don't want to touch the water because your eyes are in it.