Arjuna’s Old Age
By Luis Benítez
Translated by Dr. Monica Manolachi
“I always keep off the shadow
of ignorance, which with its chains
of illusion imprisons
people’s soul.”
(Bhagavad Gita, circa 5th century BCE)
1.
was I talking with a god a secret god
that only I could listen to on an evening like this
so many years ago or was it just another illusion of the senses
as if the same god liked to tell the same story
about beings and things
until someone became very bored?
was it a god a man or a demon
who once came to me almost naked
an ivory figure coming to life
with its disheveled hair and dirty feet
knowing that those who teach curse
and their evil spell lasts forever?
his eyes were not red and his tongue was not fire
for his appearance was modest like an arrangement
of a basket with poisonous plants
the important things come to us
riding on a dragon yet secretly
if I have remembered him
and the very different ways in which he came to me
it is because forgetting what is unnecessary was one of his gifts
all these memories are about him but he was more than this
neither young nor old neither a grown-up nor a child
neither a man nor a woman neither the living nor the dead
and it happened all at once when his mouth opened
when he was talking to me
2.
you are no doubt one of those stones that rolls uselessly
down the hillsides a few kilometers away
of the same consistency
you come from that time when the seas were conceived
the diamonds the mineral coal that burns
in the huts of those who live close to quarries
but also those who sculpted my people looking for its own face
excavating always uprooting the remaining parts
stubbornly with bleeding hands without complaint
neither at night nor by day anxious to find in the core
the heart of the stone the mirror the reflection
of what they could be in another reality
which definitely does not exist and it will not exist
something exactly halfway to the desire for our own selves
and I wished to be that god of painted stone
who talked to me that deadly afternoon
that afternoon when I stopped believing in its metaphor
much warmer and pleasant when without notice
poured over me like a mountain
that teaching
as false as it is imaginary
and I am was before and will be what
a speechless god of stone can imagine
how could a relative to stones speak
when we step on it underfoot
in that case the one who talked to me has the stature
of my shadow and is my shadow
3.
today only children and lunatics follow me
because to both I am just another crazy guy
and if the latter consider me their equal
the former choose me to be the target for their stones
sons are always taller and more stupid than their fathers
and those of today are more stupid than those who respected me
by spitting at me in my time
the light of an imaginary god is falling
in the always dull identical afternoon
night will not have any taste and darkness any matter
the world will wear out on the rough stone of the wheel
which time pedals beneath his feet
a snake that has shed half of its skin
and drags the carcass behind
half dead and half resurrected
what other god more philanthropic
will give me back my dear ignorance
my coat my so beloved little blanket
the good that almost everyone enjoys
ignoring it so as to protect it more
what else is ignorance good for if it enjoys so much
the singular condition of not knowing anything of never ever
over the years I went to the temple of the same god
of stone a god of stone then and not a god of dust
a ferruginous dust who decided to take routes
every year more and more
and asked him to bring me back the darkness
but only a burgeoning pine shone in his nose
I saw how the pine grew and every morning
the priest came out to laugh at me
before attacking his pillaged breakfast of offerings
just as his god never spoke to me those days
he and I knew he would never do
I saw the priest dying and they took out the pine
and knocked down that god’s nose:
its vandalized face keeps looking up
to the sky where it lives it is there and I am here
among its ruins
this is a man Hölderlin
(you said it first)
a god who is in ruins
Luis Benítez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1956. His 36 books have been published in Argentina, Chile, Spain, the United States, France, England, Italy, Mexico, Romania, Sweden, Venezuela and Uruguay. His last published book was The Afternoon of the Elephant and Other Poems (translation by B. Allocati / George Franklin, Katakana Editores, Miami, USA, 2020).