AMO el amor de los marineros
que besan y se van.
Dejan una promesa.
No vuelven nunca más.
I love de love of sailors
who kiss and leave
They leave a promise
Never do they return.
Pablo Neruda
The Argentine Navy (Armada República Argentina) has lost all hope of finding alive the 43 male and one female crew members of the 80s vintage diesel electric submarine ARA San Juan.
During the Malvinas War I saw on my TV an Argentine Skyhawk zooming across Goose Green suddenly explode into a puff of white. I was not sorry for the pilot. He was an officer who knew his life was on the line. But I felt terrible since that Skyhawk was one of my planes! I had translated the maintenance and operating manuals from English into Spanish in 1966 when the fighters had been purchased by the ARA from the US Navy.
With the loss of the submarine crewmembers I have revisited those events of that war but somehow this time I feel the loss of those very human sailors. Why?
It had to do with seeing some young Argentine sailors at a press conference by the ARA spokesman. Their uniforms were like mine. They were in their summer whites as it is summer in Argentina. In my portrait here I am wearing my winter blues. Those sailors looked as young as I was. It hit home in a way that reading of US sailors dying in a recent collision of their destroyer did not.
I felt so sorry for those young, severely untrained conscripts who died in that useless Malvinas War killed by seasoned and well paid professional soldiers.
Of that war Jorge Luís Borges said, “Two bald men arguing who owned the comb.”
One of the few good laws that Argentine President Carlos Menem (1989–1999) passed was the ending of the military draft. This would mean that the young sailors on board the San Juan were there on their own volition. And yet I grieve. I cannot eliminate from my being that pride of being from a country that I no longer live in but is part of that essence that makes me whom I am.
F A R E W E L L — Pablo Neruda
1
DESDE el fondo de ti, y arrodillado,
un niño triste, como yo, nos mira.
Por esa vida que arderá en sus venas
tendrían que amarrarse nuestras vidas.
Por esas manos, hijas de tus manos,
tendrían que matar las manos mías.
Por sus ojos abiertos en la tierra
veré en los tuyos lágrimas un día.
2
YO NO lo quiero, Amada.
Para que nada nos amarre
que no nos una nada.
Ni la palabra que aromó tu boca,
ni lo que no dijeron las palabras.
Ni la fiesta de amor que no tuvimos,
ni tus sollozos junto a la ventana.
3
AMO el amor de los marineros
que besan y se van.
Dejan una promesa.
No vuelven nunca más.
En cada puerto una mujer espera:
los marineros besan y se van.
Una noche se acuestan con la muerte
en el lecho del mar.
4
AMO el amor que se reparte
en besos, lecho y pan.
Amor que puede ser eterno
y puede ser fugaz.
Amor que quiere libertarse
para volver a amar.
Amor divinizado que se acerca
Amor divinizado que se va.)
5
YA NO se encantarán mis ojos en tus ojos,
ya no se endulzará junto a ti mi dolor.
Pero hacia donde vaya llevaré tu mirada
y hacia donde camines llevarás mi dolor.
Fui tuyo, fuiste mía. Qué más? Juntos hicimos
un recodo en la ruta donde el amor pasó.
Fui tuyo, fuiste mía. Tu serás del que te ame,
del que corte en tu huerto lo que he sembrado yo.
Yo me voy. Estoy triste: pero siempre estoy triste.
Vengo desde tus brazos. No sé hacia dónde voy.
…Desde tu corazón me dice adiós un niño.
Y yo le digo adiós.
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
