Susana Villalba, in translation by Robin Myers

an excerpt from La bestia ser / The Beast of Being

Susana Villalba (Buenos Aires, 1956) is a poet, playwright, theater critic, and professor. She is the author of nine poetry collections and one novel. La bestia ser, which I've translated as The Beast of Being, was published in Argentina in 2018 (Hilos Editora). Villalba received a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship to work on this book, which received Argentina’s National Poetry Prize in 2019. It is structured as a sequence of monologues in the voices of three non-human characters (animal, vegetal, mineral), each exploring its own condition and plumbing its relationship to the others. The central bond, so to speak, is between the dog and the tree: the dog, rapturous, hungry, loves the tree and is bewildered by its motionlessness. The tree, still and steady, limited to verticality, both mourns its own solitude and marvels at the lives it coexists with. The stone, unsurprisingly, is the most taciturn presence, serving as a quiet counterpoint to the yearnings – and temporalities – of its fellows.

—Robin Myers, 2024

The Tree

a trill declares

another celebrates

the epiphany of light

dawn comes slowly

making time

for belief:

a day

intact

the warm breeze

the scent of the color

blue

the clover 

each sparrow, bee

each bud

is a damp

expectation

the morning is

the happening

the innocence

of being only

breath

the deftness

of the butterfly’s dance

its moment

in the sun

what you love

ties you down

the sky told me

and here i am

a dog sniffs me

barks

and trots in circles

all around

it howls, leaps

it wants to bite

the stillness it can’t

understand

solitude is always

shared

in every fork

i prompt the birth of time

to join the world

of the dog

the wind is my memory

even up above

there’s competition

in stillness

but love also gave me

this twisted

form

the storm

and the thirst for infinite

wonder

i can’t keep

the dog

the birds

my own blossoms

in the vortex of the world

i’m the perpetual

return

my work is the pip

and the fallen leaves

i miss the dog

i’m not

god is that distance

from everything

else

the void

between what loves

and love

between the vastness

and the body

living

is a furious balance

like god i eat

what falls

from me

leaves and blossoms

fruit

all rotting

all around

i’m not sure if everything abandons me

or if i let it

the dog leaps

it barks at me and leaps

i can’t

-i whisper-

my love is a forever

fountain spilling over

that never

fills

but it never stops

-it answers

in a few days

a vine 

climbs

the height it takes 

a life for me to grow

it holds me back

its embrace

asphyxiates

and lights me up

with orchids

that’s 

togetherness for you

trills

buzzes, brushes

the dog listens

sniffs

until it finds me

with its eyes

closed

that’s love for you

you think i’m still

-i tell the dog-

but i can’t stop

you see me as

unmoving

but i’m boundless

even in nakedness

i’m still

a tree

i come to wither

what i give

baring myself 

isn’t an offer

it thrills me to begin

again

from nothing 

the buried mystery

is resurrection

the heart of the jug

is its hollow

like god

i’m not given

to falling

with everything i cast

away

i multiply

splitting off

branching out

and yet i stay

the same

always alone

i’m always here

and can’t

stay here with you

can’t have you

that’s living for you

-it replies-

the moment is creation

the body is the rest of it

the dog howls

because it thinks

it’s free 

to move about

it runs in circles

as if ablaze

it spins around itself

and tries to bite

its own death from behind

in the forking of me

the other falls

like lightning

leaving the ash

of both

that’s love for you

i can’t bear it

upright i endure

the storm, the cold

my tether to the fearsome

vastness

but being without you

isn’t the same

as being alone

don’t come any closer

i can’t

lose anything else

i’m jealous of the death

that snatches you away

while i stay here

does the tree ever sleep?

the dog wonders

curling up 

among my roots

how long is a night

for it?

how long 

for the solitude of god?

don’t think that observation

means not being here

that being isn’t making

don’t entrust me

with your motion’s

innocence

my gentleness broods

silence

has a voracious center

the dog is the world

where i dream

of leaping

i wake

to a chasm

the dog so small

it’s unreachable

so low

my shade embraces 

without ever

touching it

the dog circles

and circles

pants

makes love sprout

to hold it back

as the sky

my roots

the dog howls

like my silence

both wounded

by the subtle elements

of the impossible

a leaf peels loose

from me

not even god 

knows where anyone

is going

or what

they thank him for

what they ask of him

a star falls

forever

forever

i wait for it

to fall like that

from so much fire

but at night

there’s hardly

any breeze

color is the cadence

of the light as it abandons us

the stars don’t fall

they flee

the entire sky escapes

itself

to come from nothing

was a violent abandonment

to love is to flee

there is no lightning

now

i used to have my death

tragic

immediate

heroic

the instant throbbed

my life was climbing up

into the bolt

we’re ashes

from the sky

the light alights

on me

like a solid fear

of the infinite

to roam

in its startled

mists

has substance in me

it opens into color

as i do

into the promise

the dog looks at me

light doesn’t look

love doesn’t love

but how far will i 

keep climbing

alone