cuentos de barro - DSpace Universidad Don Bosco

la BraSa
En la cumbre más cumbre del volcán,
allá donde la tierra deja de subir
buscando a Dios; allá donde las nubes
se detienen a descansar, Pablo Melara
había parado su rancho de carbonero.
Medio rancho, medio cueva, en una
falla del acantilado aquel nido humano
se agazapaba. De la puerta para afuera,
empezaban las laderas a descolgarse,
terribles, preci pitadas; en deslizones
bruscos; abismándose, rodando,
agarrándose aflegidas. Los pinos,
enormes, eran nubes obscuras entre las
nubes; humazos negros entre la niebla.
Mecían al viento, lentamente, sus
enormes cabe zas, como si oyeran una
música dulce, salida de lo gris y de lo
frío. Las ramas chiflaban tristemente,
llevando en ritmos nasales una melodía
de inmensidad. Era la cumbre una isla
en el cielo; y el cielo, un mar de viento.
En las noches tranquilas, como por
alta mar, pasaba silenciosa la barca
de la luna nueva. A veces el horizonte
fosforecía.
El carbonero iba apilando los leños,
en pantes enormes. De cruz en cruz,
formaba una torre; como un faro que,
en las noches largas, llenas de ausencia,
ardía, ardía rojo y palpitante, señalando
126
THe eMBer
On the summit of the highest peak of
the volcano; there, where the earth
stops climbing in search of God; there,
where the clouds stop to rest, Pablo
Melara had erected his shack to work
as a charcoal-burner. 211 Half shack, half
cave, in a fault of the cliff, that human
nest was snuggled. From the door to
the outside, the hills were beginning
to detach like bats, terrible, sudden,
in brusque slides, plunging, tumbling,
and worried, trying to grab onto
something.
The enormous pines were dark clouds
among the clouds; black clouds of
smoke amidst the fog. The pines
were dancing towards the wind their
enormous heads, cocked as if they were
listening to sweet music, emerging
out of what was gray and cold. The
branches whistled sadly, carrying in
nasal rhythms an immense melody. The
peak was an island in the sky; and the
sky, an ocean of wind. On tranquil
nights, like on the high tides, the boat
of the new moon silently passed by.
Sometimes the horizon would glow
with a phosphorescent light.
The charcoal-burner was stacking up
logs, in enormous heaping piles. He
was making a tower, shaping the logs
like a cross; like a lighthouse that would
burn on long nights full of loneliness.
211. Carbonero or charcoal-burner is the person who burns wood to produce charcoal. Grey Fox on
wordreference.com comments “Charcoal burners were an age-old part of many landscapes and always
on the edge of society, with a very unsocial lifestyle based on such thankless labour! c/f Thomas Hardy
‘The Woodlanders.’”