Translation of the text of J.Dávalos for "Vidala del Nombrador", by Eduardo Falú and Ana Beatriz Fernández de Briones

VIDALA DEL NOMBRADOR
Song of the Namer


I come out of the raucous drum of the moon
from a purely animal memory.
I am an outburst from the woods, from the earth, that returns
from its ancient mineral root.

I am that which sings behind the verse,
that which on the spume of the river will return...
living landscape...my song, it is the water
which through the forest rises to flower.
I come from inside the man sleeping
under the loamy ground and the carnal branch of blood...

I flowered in the wine
and the barbarous love of carneval.
I name the ground which the tropic embraces
bridge of stars, girdles of light
at the carpenter's heart of Salta
I ride wild horses through the blue night.

Soloist:
I am he who paints the grapes
and paints them with green shoots...
I dry it (the shoots), and the dry wood, I make it sprout.

I am none other than Arjona (the heaven tree)
the name that never will disappear,
for surely if one throws me into the river
upon the spume I will return.

N.B. The vidala, or vidalita, is a melancholy song indigenous to Argentina and Chile.
The heaven-tree is part of the native religion and creation story, and has some of the the attributes of the Bacchus-type as well as the positive creative force.

Texte: J. Dávalos
English: Patricia Romza Warren