The First Noise
THE FIRST NOISE
No, it is not the intonation
It is not the rhythm
Not even the meaning.
It is the word by itself
Mouthless.
And who would ever care about
What the poet says? What matters is the ritual
The metaphor of what we've always been
The memory of the first vocal sound
"the secret language of the birds
of the first day" Today's man is out of tune
He has forgotten the words.
Someone stammers something
And everyone arrives, it's the ritual
The transition
Memory,
the substitution,
The endless metaphor
What strange analogy is man? The poet says nothing
But a living being comes out of his throat
Invisible, having only sound
And an ancient music.
We remember then the original sound
The first sound in the world
When the word became blood
And collective food. With time came verses
But the birds no longer cared about it
The poet speaks, sings or prays
And wants to name the world
In all forms.
He invokes the spirits
And calls the other
"I will people myself with voices," he says,
and turns to his metaphor which is of fire. But the word keeps silent
The word is the grandfather of the species
The word is sense
It is power and walking stick.
© Álvaro Marín
© Translation: 2007, Nicolás Suescún
No, it is not the intonation
It is not the rhythm
Not even the meaning.
It is the word by itself
Mouthless.
And who would ever care about
What the poet says? What matters is the ritual
The metaphor of what we've always been
The memory of the first vocal sound
"the secret language of the birds
of the first day" Today's man is out of tune
He has forgotten the words.
Someone stammers something
And everyone arrives, it's the ritual
The transition
Memory,
the substitution,
The endless metaphor
What strange analogy is man? The poet says nothing
But a living being comes out of his throat
Invisible, having only sound
And an ancient music.
We remember then the original sound
The first sound in the world
When the word became blood
And collective food. With time came verses
But the birds no longer cared about it
The poet speaks, sings or prays
And wants to name the world
In all forms.
He invokes the spirits
And calls the other
"I will people myself with voices," he says,
and turns to his metaphor which is of fire. But the word keeps silent
The word is the grandfather of the species
The word is sense
It is power and walking stick.
© Álvaro Marín
© Translation: 2007, Nicolás Suescún
