The Puerto Rican Literature Project

The silence of falling water,

the silence of roads,

the silence of houses at the edge of the road,

the silence of peasant eyes,

the silence of fallen trunks

the silence of beasts,

the silence of moving trees,

the silence of green ponds deep in the forests,

the silence of frogs at noon,

the silence of múcaro owls at night,

the silence of the wind in the silences,

the silence of the wind on roofs,

the palpitations of the silence in the silences,

the silence of the silence in the silences.

The silence of dark rock offshore,

the silence of the wave that comes,

the silence of the wave that goes,

the silence of beaches in the sun,

the silence of the wave without beaches,

the silence of immensity,

the silence of ships in the fog,

the silence of faraway shipwrecks,

the silence of the port’s old sailors,

the silence of the sailor’s wife,

the silence of the sailor’s children,

the silence of the sea in the silences,

the silence of furious swells against the cliffs,

the silence of boats coming back from fishing,

the silence of seagulls on the rocks,

the silence of pelicans over the sea,

the silence of twilights over the sea’s horizons,

the palpitations of the silence in the silences,

the silence of the silence in the silences.

The silence of the wind coming from the North,

the silence of the wind coming from the South,

the silence of windows breaking,

the silence of boats after the storm,

the silence of those death is watching,

the silence of the hanged,

the silence of those who kill,

the silence of the infatuated,

the silence of perverse beings,

the silence of guard dogs,

the silence of empty homesteads,

the silence of broken conversations,

the silence of those who say goodbye to each other,

the silence of those who want to love us,

the silence of the coffin lid,

the silence of the hearse driver,

the silence of gravediggers,

the silence of those who feel accused,

the silence of the defeated,

the silence of those who see too much,

the silence of those who hate us,

the silence of inevitable things,

the silence of miserable fates,

the palpitations of the silence in the silences,

the silence of the silence in the silences.

The silence of the small in the infinite,

the silence of lips without desire,

the silence of reneging,

the silence of those who say without speaking,

the silence of long hands,

the silence of eyes that don’t look,

the silence of children

and that of old people,

the silence of large candles illuminating a corpse,

the silence of heads coming together,

the silence of books on shelves,

the silence of moth-eaten furniture,

the silence of mirrors in closed rooms,

the silence of old portraits,

the silence of clouds going by in the distance,

and the silence of wandering stars,

the silence of drooping faces

and the silence of smiles,

the silence of the flowers that blossom to live a moment,

the palpitations of the silence in the silences,

the silence of the silence in the silences.

Translator's note: One of the challenges I faced in translating this poem was reckoning with the profusion of definite articles (el, la, los, las), since they are ubiquitous in Spanish and fundamental to the poem’s anaphora-fueled rhythm, yet often redundant or out of place in English. My solution was to preserve definite articles when they seem to specify something (“the silence of the flowers that blossom to live a moment”) and when they are key to the rhythm and chain of associations in the poem, as in the eerie refrain “the palpitations of the silence in the silences, / the silence of the silence in the silences.”