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Enough!

By Luis Alberto Ambroggio

 ¡Basta!

  -- Marcho lleno de un vigor supremo y nuevo,
      soy parte de una procesión inacabable.
           Walt Whitman (38)

Nunca le hubiese visto la poesía
a esa palabra tajante,
pero en su agresividad cargada
de emociones y en su decisión profunda,
la admiro: ¡Basta!
Decreto personal inapelable:
se acabó la injusticia, la tumba,
lo que nos encadena como piedra
y nos impide seguir los edictos
de los sueños, de la libertad
de los principios inocentes
antes de ser esqueletos
de los dictadores de rutina,
sometidos bajo el yugo
que nos niega el beber
el gozo de la arena,
la vida que perdura,
la dignidad de pueblo.
¡Basta! de la dureza
que no respira ternura
desde el caudal del origen,
desde la jungla de los sueños
desde el aire desnudo.

Declaro que me pertenezco,
me pertenece y posee la humanidad materna
a quien yo mismo pertenezco
y no a los credos, mandatos o disciplinas
que gritan bendiciones o maldiciones
con el don de lenguas y otros disfraces
de luz altiva o de amenazas.

Me festejan los azares.
Estiércol, abono,
raíz , brote  y semilla,
mi dueño es la tierra.
Me repudian las jerarquías
como yo también las repudio.
¡Basta! Un ¡basta! sin confines.

*  *  *

Enough!

-- I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power,
    one of an average unending procession.
         Walt Whitman (38)

Poetry might never have seen
that categorical word,
but in its charged belligerence
of emotions and in its profound determination,
I admire it: Enough!
Unappealable personal decree:
that's the last of injustice, the grave,
that which enchains us like stone
and impedes our following the edicts
of our dreams, of freedom
of innocent beginnings
rather than become skeletons
of customary dictators,
bound to the same yoke
that denies us a drink
the joy of sand,
life that endures,
the people's dignity.
Enough! Of the severity
that breathes no tenderness
from our native wealth,
from the jungle of our dreams,
from the pure air.

I declare that I belong to myself,
maternal humanity possesses me
as I belong to her
and not to creeds, commands, or disciplines
that shout blessings or curses
with the gift of language and other disguises
of imperious light or of threats.

Misfortunes celebrate me.
Dung, manure,
root, sprout, and seed,
my master is the land.
Hierarchies repudiate me
as I also repudiate them.
Enough! Basta! A limitless Enough!
Added: Thursday, December 8, 2016  /  From "We are all Whitman/Todos somos Whitman" (Arte Publico Press, 2016). Translated by Brett Alan Sanders.
Luis Alberto Ambroggio

Luis Alberto Ambroggio is an internationally known Hispanic-American writer and poet, member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and PEN. He is the author of more than 20 collections of poetry, short stories and essays published in Argentina, Costa Rica, Spain, and the United States, including Todos somos Whitman/We are all Whitman (2016), The Wind's Archeology (2013 International Latino Best Book Award), and Tribute to the Road/Homenaje al Camino (2015) with a prologue of Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. His bilingual anthology Difficult Beauty, Selected Poems (1987-2006) edited by Yvette Neisser-Moreno has a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winner Oscar Hijuelos. Translated to twelve languages, his poetry has been recorded in the Archives of Hispanic Literature of the Library of Congress

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