Rain, by Roberto Bolaño

Estarcido de Bolaño, Barri de Sant Antoni, Barcelona, Catalunya. (c) Farisori, 2013

Rain

It’s raining, and you say: ‘it’s as if the clouds

were crying.’ Then you cover your mouth and hurry

on. As if those scrawny clouds were crying?

No way, impossible. Yet where does that rage come from,

that desperation that will take us all to hell?

Nature shrouds some procedures of hers

in Mystery, her stepbrother. And so, this evening,

which you believe similar to an end-of-the-world evening,

sooner than you think will seem just

a gloomy evening, an evening of solitude lost

in your memory: the mirror of Nature. Or maybe

you will forget it. Neither the rain, nor the weeping, nor your steps

echoing on the cliff track matter now;

Now you may cry, and let your image dissolve

on the windscreens of those cars parked along

the Promenade. Yet you cannot get lost.

Translated into English by Jorge Salavert, 2013.