Una mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro - Mario Benedetti
Saturday, July 21, 2018
I have been taking photographs of women from the moment I bought my first camera around 1958. I have been taking photographs of women with nothing on since 1969 when I photographed my Rosemary with our first daughter Ale who was one. And since 1976 here in Vancouver my quest has continued and will only stop when I cannot click anymore.
Time and again this image (the one of the left) of my friend Tarren suddenly appears in my memory and I have to hasten to my files to at least look at the negative. It was only today that I noticed the other with Tarren's eyes closed. Looking back at this photograph I feel so lucky to have been there in my studio to record this woman who had that undefinable grace laced with electricity that is so rare.
I am not a poet nor a writer and the only way I can express or define what I think or what I see is through my photography. Uruguayan poet and writer Mario Benedetti wrote the poem A Nude woman in the darkness that pretty well expresses what I feel when I look at Tarren's photograph or any of the others I took of her. Benedetti is not well known up in our parts so there is no translation for his words here.
Una mujer
desnuda y en lo oscuro – Mario Benedetti
Una
mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
tiene
una claridad que nos alumbra
de modo
que si ocurre un desconsuelo
un
apagón o una noche sin luna
es
conveniente y hasta imprescindible
tener a
mano una mujer desnuda.
Una
mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
genera
un resplandor que da confianza
entonces
dominguea el almanaque
vibran
en su rincón las telarañas
y los
ojos felices y felinos
miran y
de mirar nunca se cansan.
Una
mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
es una
vocación para las manos
para los
labios es casi un destino
y para
el corazón un despilfarro
una
mujer desnuda es un enigma
y
siempre es una fiesta descifrarlo.
Una
mujer desnuda y en lo oscuro
genera
una luz propia y nos enciende
el cielo
raso se convierte en cielo
y es una
gloria no ser inocente
una
mujer querida o vislumbrada
desbarata
por una vez la muerte.
