PARAGUAYAN POETRY – Herib Campos Cervera

All of the scholars on Paraguayan literature, say that his work is the starting point of a new poetic conception. His poetry, retains the imprint of exile and political persecution. Europeans arrived in Paraguay in the sixteenth century, and the first residential settlement was the foundation of the city of Asunción. Herib Camposs Cervera was born in Asunción, Paraguay, on March 30, 1905, son of Spanish parents (also a poet). An unhappy childhood, apparently marked his life, and in his poetry we may find the traces of this first stage of his life. The nostalgia and the hope, the verbal elegance and the spiritual transparency distinguish his very personal style, deeply rooted in the national circumstances of the poet. He moved to the social and human subjects deepening, taking advantage of the immense and unexplored folk stories.

SOLEDAD SIN RECUERDO – ¡Oh, voz de nube! ¡Oh, terciopelo! ¿Cómo nombrar tu música de musgo sin disipar las brumas que te velan? Viene la voz entre un aroma urgente, de jazmines de luna y se derrama, sobre el camino ciego de la noche. Baja por escaleras de tristeza, para perderse entre remotos pinos, y aliviarse de penas en los duros, espejos de la nieve desolada. Deja en el aire en llamas su caricia, y al recorrer los círculos del viento, un caracol incierto la recoge, y la devuelve, al fin, yacente y pálida, muerta sobre un paisaje de silencio. ¡Y no saber cómo nombrarte, para que vuelvas a llorar, subiendo los senderos de luna y de jazmines! ¡Oh, voz de nube! ¡Oh, inasible perfil de ausencia y lágrimas: verte morir y no saber cómo nombrarte! ¡Oh, terciopelo! – LONELINESS WITHOUT REMEMBERING – Oh, cloud voice! Oh, Velvet! Giving a name to your music without dissipating moss mists that look at you? Is the voice of an urgent aroma of jasmine and the moon spilled over the blind man walk in the night. Sadness down the stairs to get lost among ancient pines and relief from pains present, mirrors the desolate snow. Leaves open burning his touch, and walking circles in the wind, unsure a snail choose it, and finally back reclined and pale, dead of a silent landscape. And you do not know how to call you, so once again afflicted, climbing paths of the moon and jasmine! Oh, cloud voice! Oh, elusive of absence profile and tears: you die and do not know how to call you! Oh, Velvet!