[A letter from Augusto Al Q'adi Alcalde. Subject: "A Happy Poet." English translation by the author]
24 years ago, under military dictatorship of rape, murder and immense gray sadness, They went in search of him, Juan Gelman the Poet, That night he was not a home, so, with death logic and claws, they went and picked up his son instead. Happened that his son had a wife, and the girl was pregnant, both in their twenties, so they took her too, what the fuck! He was tortured and killed, His grandfather, Juan, searched for him or his bones found them, kinda twenty years after, and a bit of peace came to his heart. His son's wife, was too tortured, and gave birth under it in a concentration camp, then, after, of course, with death logic, tortured her a bit more then killed her and her bones were never found, But the grandfather the poet the Man kept on searching from exile, from wherever, from nowhere, and twenty four years after, he found the baby, that is today, She's 24, he? I do not know ageless oldancient but never rusty. Saw the man on tv, telling the news to all of us that found in her in him our own beloved never lost compañeros/as. Saw the Man, a tear a single teardrop falling from his voice who can say of happiness or pain, a single, only, tear, the source of all poetry, all dignity all struggle all finding all walking all loving all living are contained in this, this, this, tear mixing with this red wine glass raised with salud! cheers! for life for revolution for the One Love Dead can really dance. Autumn has definitely come as every year and sometimes days as leaves dancing and nights as days years nights leaves running slow like a snail a heart a love a missing a hole dressed in poetry in faith in the word that calling the true name sings bringing forth the mistery of life the pain the heart the memory the walk pathless deep track blood searching blood pulse searching pulse and nothing no one not the nobodies that disappeared tortured killed and many other names that i'll spare the ear of has stopped, arrested, polluted, weakened the autumn eyes the poetry dressed heart the nights the missing the love today great day humble day justice day this pulse searching palpitating the hole has found his blood that is to saysingcry has found his seed his flower found her wind and the seed, of all of us seed search flies fertilized in this sea in which at least this time this laughter tear is resting is dancing is shining the past is unpredictable the future is less misty like the trees flying as the birds unclouding the red oceans. Augusto Alcalde 3/31/2000
[For another writer to writer tribute, read Richard Hamasaki's "For He Who Wears the Sea Like a Malo" for Wayne Westlake (1946 - 1984), and "land of the dead" by red flea]