Luis Arias Manzo

Founder and president of the Chilen based poets of the world, Luis Arias Manzo has penned several books including; Agualuna (Watermoon; 2002) Mil años de Amor (A thousand years of Love; 2003) and Instantes (Instances; 2004). His work is also featured in countless anthologies. Luis submitted the following poem, Pachamama III, to us from  Mil años del Amor (translation by chileno.co.uk).

Pachamama III

¿Cuánto tiempo anduve en la oscuridad
Antes que tu llegaras en luces de luciérnagas?
El bosque estaba oscuro desde aquel día
Cuando nos acorralaron en la emboscada.

¿Cuántos siglos estuve perdido
En la memoria muerta de la luz?

¡Qué negro panorama nos pintaron
Con los colores de la nada y del vacío!
Creían que nos enceguecían y nos mataban,
Pero jamás pensaron en nuestro pacto.

Nos dejaron vagar en el sombrío paisaje
Y en la falla del caos y la perdición.
Pero ya nada nos detiene,
Cada uno de nosotros acude a la cita
Y nos volvemos a juntar como antes
En el abrigo de las grandes gotas de la tempestad.

Pachamama III

How long had I been walking in darkness
Before you came in firefly lights?
The forest was dark from that day
When we were cornered in the ambush.

How many centuries had I been lost
In the dead memory of the light?

How black was the view that they painted of us
With the colours of nothing and emptiness.
They thought they had blinded and killed us,
But they never thought of our covenant.

They let us wander in the gloomy landscape
And in the breakdown of chaos and damnation
But nothing stops us,
Every one of us attends the appointment
And we get back together like before
Under the cover of the large raindrops of the storm.