La Tonada Inasible
Silvio Rodriguez
The Unattainable Tune
Fifteen seconds ago
the poet died
and fifteen centuries ago
we noticed his absence.
We thought then
that we were back,
when there was so much
of absence and poet missing.
Fifteen millennia ago
the poet escaped us
leaving us his widows
and his eternal girl.
Let's toast to his words,
to his red head,
brothers of the blood
shed by the poet.
For him his adversaries
do not forget, but celebrate,
and for him, his friends,
however they may be today,
come together again
for their miseries
calling upon this dead man
of perfect health.
Fifteen silences ago
and many other sadnesses
who knows what his voice
of intelligence would say.
That's why a swan sings,
a fugitive in the forest,
the unattainable tune
that the poet awakened.
