Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

Garrapata Nahyuv-McDunnit

A New Translation by Nestor del Tobón

The agèd Queen two princes begat; her newer half-young

As Elder was old. Until, as mothers wont do,

She urged the younger where travel and likewise what bring.

Thusly did it come to pass that this younger of two

Did alight onto our world from the openest sky

Feebly armed and with only sense slight of where he’d go,

What he would do once there and why.

The sky he quit was soft and warm

Yet the low land he saw draw nigh,

Growing steadily in his eyes, seemed frigid and hard,

With poorer air than the home he’d departed and less

Room where he might hope to safely ensconce his heart.

For where he then landed was densely forest

Where aught the tallest trees were small

And truly the roundest circles seemed square.

Of this forest he deemed study all.

Looking first up before down

Then side to side with scant awe.

But not without adding to his face a mounting fearful frown

For well he understood he was not rightly of that place

And also did he perceive an encroaching darkness then.

One that would blind him to leafy trees,

The slight creatures extant and home,

And the very ground that supported his

Weight and pushed up against his own

Feet ensuring he could not take flight

To ascend from that darkening globe

And return whence he left.

Thus did his princely mind

Resolve that ere Day went

He would endeavor, through sight,

To find his way out of that

Tangled brush and unchecked grime

Which had entwined his heart,

Rooted him to heavy Earth,

And obscured his purpose from the start.

To begin, the resolute prince first

Traveled eastward where he found

The forestry slighter yet thicker,

The pull greater from the ground,

And a harshly disfigured beast,

Enormous in both sight and sound,

Blocking any passage he might attempt

While addressing him thusly:

“Only one who is truly lost,”

Spake the beast, “would dare appear before me

In such a manner wholly unarmed

So that thy certain and grievous defeat

Would occur in and of slightest momentum

And in every possible event

With greatest attendant harm.”

Only when the young man spoke naught

Did the creature hastily quod,

“Or is yet my speech intemperate?

For could not the sight of thou naked

Yet calm portend the terrible truth

Of a strength and power greater for being well-hid?”

Nor to this either did speaketh

The young prince, well aware

He of his dearth of strength

Both hidden or evidently clear.

Choosing instead sudden flight

So eager he to abscond from there.

And with expanding black night

Cloaking the fearsome still beast

Did the young prince then decide

To travel farthermost west

In ardent search of method

For retrieving what he’d lost.

So he traveled toward the sinking sun

The horrors of the eastern creature

No dimmer by virtue of being done,

The approaching horizon as if afire

But aglow with the promise

That the answer somehow lay near,

Visible to all, yet in expectant wait only for his

Discovery. Thereat went the young man

Hopeful that second would be last of his voyages.

But his hope did dim much when

Arriving at length at the New

He found a chasm, widened without end

By long sad years, into which the sun now

Disappeared entire taking what meager light

And warmth the new world had theretofore known.

Descending into that hole complete

He found others in appearance as him

Tearing at each other in scattered effort

To raise themselves and sowise climb

(Supported by the massive weight

Of others) but undone by a fall each time.

And the heaven-descended prince eyed the replacement

Moon seeing what he thought the lovely face

Of his mother and entreating it to reveal his fate.

But while the moon’s light did soothe his eyes

Not far had th’orb truly bade

To answer his doubtful sighs.

And presently from the moon’s appearance did fade

The reassuring visage of his mother

So that the young prince was in solitude forced

To seek his means of homeward return,

Out of that world of empty dread

And once again to that of his noble mother,

Through the use of Thought, for surely it had

Been the greatest of the intentionally few

Gifts with which he had obediently traveled.

So quickly did he move away

From that yawning earth

To let his troubled mind weigh

Thoughts of how he might at last depart

That ruinous place. Upon themselves

Those learned thoughts did build, the true

Of them supporting novel ones

And emerging from those

The strongest for corners.

Building through such means

A ladder, ethereal but true,

And able to support his corpse

Thought he. Yet learning instead too

That as he would attempt to elevate

The insubstance of the ladder would

Rebel against his body’s weight,

Keeping him lower than he wished

With dreams of Mother still frustrate.

And though the ladder grew its best

With success eventual

Still imbued with promise,

The young prince grew so impatient with it all,

The progress so deliberately slow,

So often seeing the moon rise then fall,

That he soon sought a newly improved route,

One that would re-wed him to the heavens

With rungs that ought repel his feet until home.

Accordingly did he construct magic vines

Which vines he tied to each step

Of the ladder as up he would steadily rise.

And not until he felt a slight drop

In his climb did he look below

To see the wroth eastern beast rising up

In pursuit, alternating each ascending paw,

Baring its many demonic teeth,

Intent fully on reaching its prey.

The young prince did then raise his speed

Only, in his hurried frantic haste,

To see distance shrink twixt him and beast.

Until, from mere distance at last,

He saw in approach the cloud

That segued to the world of his past.

And in a final leap conducted in the highest above

Did the young prince presently and safely land

Beyond the portal cloud past which the beast dared not run.

Content instead on the ladder to stand

And wait, in vain if need be,

For the return of the princely man.

Who now searched in that safety

For the mother he did not see

Unaware that her end had been deadly,

Just the shortest of measured time since,

At the sullied hands of a brother jealous

That the younger’s journey did not include he.

And now did that elder brother seize in his hands

The limp body of their heavenly mother

To pull on her head by the lifeless hairs

Until only the severed head of her

Remained in his bloodied grasp,

The better with which to deceive his brother.

For into that head he reached to scoop

What in life her skull had cradled,

Creating thusly of the skull a masking top

That forcibly he placed over his head

To in such manner then falsely greet

His brother in guise of the recent dead.

“O my journey ’twas long and full of fright,”

The now becalmed prince spoke,

“Yet the fragrant peace I have only hither felt

Makes my adventures seem far less dark.”

Then adding, hearing no response,

“Your son, the other, does he not hark

To my just now resurrected presence?”

To which came the misprize reply: