WEBVTT

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One final poem in a
series one this time,

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and I ask apologies in
advance for my Spanish accent

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when I quote two lines
from Garcia Lorca that

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are too familiar, I'm sure
to all of you to translate.

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This is called
"October, 1973," it

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was written at the time of
the overthrow of the Allende

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government by the Chilean Junta.

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The poem is transcribed, not
based on, but transcribed

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from a dream as simply and as an
ornamented as I could make it.

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There is a character in the
poem named Barbara and when

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I describe what she did as a
young woman that is all true,

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but the rest of the
poem is the dream.

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And the figure in the dream
who was very much on my mind,

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sleeping and waking was the
Chilean poet Nicanor Parra

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who had gone back to
Chile just weeks before

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and had been trapped
there by the revolution.

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October 1973.

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Last night I dreamed I ran
through the streets of New

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York, looking for
help for you Nicanor,

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but my few friends who
are rich or influential

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were temporarily absent from
their penthouses or hotel

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suites.

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They had gone to the opera
or flown for the weekend

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to Bermuda.

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At last, I found
one or two of them

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at home preparing for
social engagements,

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absently smiling as they tried
on gown after gown, until heaps

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of rich beautiful fabric
were strewn over the chairs

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and sofas.

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They posed before mirrors with
their diamonds and trinkets

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and floor length furs.

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Smiling at me from the mirror,
they vaguely promised help.

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They became distracted by
constantly ringing phones,

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by obsequious secretaries
bustling in with packages,

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flowers, messages,
all the paraphernalia,

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all part of the uninterruptible
round of the rich.

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The nice rich,
smiling soothingly

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as they touch their
hair or picked up

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their phone extensions.

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Absently patting my arm they
smiled, it will be all right.

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Dusk fell on the city as I ran
naked weeping into the street.

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I ran to the home of
Barbara, my friend, who

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was a young girl rescued
for loyalist soldiers

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from a Spanish prison.

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In her teenage sweater set and
saddle shoes and knee socks,

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she drove an old car sagging
with loyalist pamphlets

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across the Pyrenees, all the way
to Paris without being caught.

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And not long ago, she helped
save a group of Basques

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from Franco's sentence of death.

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In my dream, Barbara
telephones Barcelona.

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I realize this isn't quite right
but just stand there paralyzed

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as one does in dreams.

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Then dimly from the
other end of the line

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through the chatter of
international operators we hear

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artillery fire, the
faint tones of lost men,

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craft voices singing
"Los Quatros Generales"

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through the pulsations of
the great twisted cable

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under the ocean.

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Agonía, Agonía, sueño,
fermente y sueño.

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Este es el mundo,
amigo, agonía, agonía.

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"No, Barbara!"

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I scream, "We are
not back there,

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that's the old revolution.

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Call up the new one.

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Though I know that
every day your friends

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Nicanor telephone Santiago
where the number rings and rings

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and rings with never an answer.

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And now the rings are
turning into nils, the church

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bells of Santiago tolling
the funeral of Neruda,

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his poems looted, his
autobiography stolen,

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his books desecrated in
his house on Isla Negra."

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And among the smashed
glass, the broken furniture,

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his desk overturned, the ruined
book strewn over the floor

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lie the great floral wreaths
from the Swedish Academy.

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The wreaths from Paris, South
Asia, the whole world over,

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and the bells toll on.

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Then I tell Barbara
to hang up the phone,

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but she dials the number again,
then turns to me smiling,

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smiling like an
angel, he is there.

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Trembling, I take
the phone from her

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and hear your voice, Nicanor.

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Sad, humorous,
infinitely disillusion,

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infinitely consoling.

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Dear Carolyn, it is Nicanor.

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And the connection is
broken because I wake up

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in this white room,
in this white silence,

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in this backwater of
silence, on this Isla Blanca.

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Nicanor, Nicanor, are you
too silent under the earth?

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Brother, brother.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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