Down The Pipe by Angye Gaona

by Steven McCabe

Please refer to January 15, 2013 for a more in-depth treatment of this poem

I follow the way of the sternum,
I search for the origin of thirst,
I go to the bottom of a pipe of silver walls,
solid due to time,
moving when the flood,
when childhood, was freezing.
I collect the rootlets of thought.
I carry them on my eroded back
next to the wild oblivion falling from me.
They look out
from small caves,
the signs of pain,
and fast elude the looks
and hide again in the skin of the pipe.
Inscribed on the walls
are the undecipherable coordinates
of the prehistoric ray
that formed my face.
It is a time of depths,
a time without syllable,
when I am only a sound
in transit to fatigue.
I search for a spring
to bathe the question affixed on my history.
I search for a new-born life
and I find thirst.
I follow the way of the sternum.

Translated by Nicolás Suescún

Angye Gaona is a Colombian surrealist poet facing politically inspired legal difficulties.