Translated from the Spanish by Annabel Villar and Gabriela Pavanetti
Narrated by Bill Wolak
Uruguay
I feel like I was happy on that rooftop
and on the white concrete staircase
that warmed the days of my childhood.
I used to let the longest hours
of summer evenings die
while I was lying on the last step
of the white staircase
with youth adventure books
and I dreamed and I dreamed…
There is always a memory hidden
within another memory,
a memory that confuses
truth with imagination,
although it is known that every truth
always has fringes of lies.
Sometimes I run away from myself
taking refuge in those memories
of my childhood.
I do not want to appeal to that easy remedy
to blame the years, the elapsed time,
because the same time that has passed
exalts the range of memory.
Why do I remember that staircase?
Why do I remember that rooftop?
Is it that memories are chosen?
I close my eyes and realize that
those memories are like a new childhood
which returns with all its innocence,
as if it would start life again,
that exultant deed of discovering the world.
Julio Pavanetti, a Uruguayan/Spanish poet and cultural promoter, is founder and President of the international poet’s association “Liceo Poético de Benidorm;” Director of “Azul” poetry collection Enkuadres Publishers, Spain; Director of the International Poetry Festival “Benidorm & Costa Blanca;” Associate Academic and Honorary Member “American Academy of Modern Literature;” and member of the “Association of Spanish Writers and Artists.” He has published eleven books of poetry. Many of his poems have been translated into 26 different languages. He received many national and international literary prizes, recognitions and awards for his work.
Gabriela Pavanetti, author’s daughter, is an English philologist, a bilingual Spanish and English translator and a secondary school teacher in the city of Leeds, United Kingdom.
Annabel Villar hails from Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a poet and cultural activist who is a founding member Liceo Poetico de Benidorm; Associate Academic and Honorary Member American Academy of Modern Literature; Director of the “Azul” Poetry Collection and International Poetry Festival “Benidorm & Costa Blanca”; and founding member of the Student Academy of Contemporary Art (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Chair No. 6 “Gabriela Mistral”). Her works include: Viaje al Sur del Sur (2015), Cantar la Vida (XVI Provincial Poetry Prize of Aspe, Alicante, 2015), Meditación (bilingual Spanish-English, 2017) and Claustrofobia & Vértigo (bilingual Spanish-English, 2018).
María Juliana Villafañe is a Puerto Rican poet, narrator, screenwriter, playwright, translator, and composer of popular music. He has published Aires de Tormenta,Dimensiones, Volar Sin Alas, Entre Dimensiones, Aurora y sus Viajes Intergalácticos, and Dimensiones en el Amor. He translated the books Usina de Dolor / Foundry of Pain by the Peruvian poet Antonio Cillóniz de La Guerra. National Poetry Prize, Peru 2019 and Al Roce de la Piel Callada / At the touch of a Silent Flesh by the Uruguayan poet Julio Pavanetti, 2018. (Winning book of the 1st Prize of the XVI Poetry Contest “Ayuntamiento de Aspe” “Bliblioteca Rubén Darío” Aspe, Spain 2015).
