Something set me off with Micaela Chirif’s poem on Day 12, which recalls a phone call from a dead friend, and I have decided to revisit an old favourite by poor, wasted Jorge Teillier – the only poet to appear twice so far in this series. The poem was read at the poet’s funeral on 24 April, 1996.

If you wish to speak with the dead

If you wish to speak with the dead
you have to choose words
that they will easily recognise,
as easily as their hands
recognise their dogs’ fur in the dark.
Clear and calm words
like spring water tamed inside a wineglass
or the chairs set back in place by your mother
after the guests have left.
Words given refuge by the night
as the marshland its will-o’-the-wisp.

If you wish to speak with the dead
you need to learn how to wait:
they are fearful
like the first steps of a child.
But if we are patient
one day they will answer us
with a poplar leaf caught in a broken mirror,
with a flame suddenly revived in the fireplace,
with a dark return of birds
before the gaze of a girl
who waits unmoving on the threshold.

Para hablar con los Muertos

 Para hablar con los muertos
hay que elegir palabras
que ellos reconozcan tan fácilmente
como sus manos
reconocían el pelaje de sus perros en la oscuridad.
Palabras claras y tranquilas
como el agua del torrente domesticada en la copa
o las sillas ordenadas por la madre
después que se han ido los invitados.
Palabras que la noche acoja
como a los fuegos fatuos los pantanos.

Para hablar con los muertos
Hay que saber esperar:
ellos son miedosos
como los primeros pasos de un niño.
Pero si tenemos paciencia
Un día nos responderán
con una hoja de álamo atrapada por un espejo roto,
con una llama de súbito reanimada en la chimenea,
con un regreso oscuro de pájaros
frente a la mirada de una muchacha
que aguarda inmóvil en el umbral.

Jorge Teillier (1935-96) was a Chilean poet, a key figure in the later 20th century literature of a country dominated by great poets such as Mistral, Neruda, Parra, Huidobro, de Rokha and Lihn.  Teillier offers a unique, gentle voice, with a profound sense of the lyrical, often associated with simple, everyday – and usually rural – concerns. His collected poems are published as Nostalgia de la Tierra.