Leaves of Grass Translation Jorge Luis Borges, visual interpretations Pérez Celis.

"Buena la tierra y buenas las estrellas y bueno cuanto les pertenece." J.L.B.

"The earth good and the stars good and their adjuncts all good." W.W.

Soy el poeta del Cuerpo y el poeta del Alma Los goces del cielo están conmigo y los tormentos del infierno están conmigo." J.L.B.

" I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul. The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me".W.W.

“Pérez Celis is constantly reinventing himself and his art and this time is surprising us with a celebration of Whitman’s literature that has keenly captured poet’s utopian earthly vision, his simple yet profound style, his metaphysical yet uplifting colors.” Karl Bὃrzlin.

The achievement of both is the friendliness with the everyday, with the phenomenal world that includes human beings, animals, vegetables and minerals. All this assumed, like Leonardo when he painted rocks with the mastery of a geologist and the flight of an eagle. Although each and every one of Pérez Celis' findings deserves a neat analysis, I will only dwell on the portrait of Whitman himself, a pictorial version of generous dimensions, of more than two meters. A manifestly spectacular work that outlines the poet's face covered with infinite ranges of colors textured with leaves and herbs, with stems and twigs incorporated as a kind of natural "collage" that, far from appearing attached, seems to sprout from the fabric itself. "Rafael Squirru.

“Yo me celebro y yo me canto, Y todo cuanto es mío también es tuyo, Porque no hay un átomo de mi cuerpo que no te pertenezca.” J.L.B.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” W.W.

"Mientras que el sol no te rechace, no te rechazaré." J.L.B.

"Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you." W.W.

"Donde el toro avanza" J.L.B.

"Where the bull advances" W.W.

"Rodeando con el brazo el cuello del amigo." J.L.B.

"Curv’d with his arm the shoulder of his friend." W.W.

"Una invisible mano también acaricia sus carnes, Desciende trémula por las sienes y por los pechos." J.L.B

"An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies, It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs." W.W.

"He cantado el cuerpo y el alma, la guerra y la paz, he cantado Las canciones de la vida y la muerte, Y las canciones del nacimiento, y he probado que hay muchos nacimientos." J.L.B.

"I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung, and the songs of life and death, And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births." W.W.

"Límpidos, ilimitados chorros de amor, calientes y enormes. trémula jalea de amor, zumo espumoso y delirante." J.L.B.

"Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, White-blow and delirious juice." W.W.

"Sé que mi órbita no puede ser medida por el compás del carpintero
Sé que no me perderé como la espiral que en la oscuridad traza un niño con un palo encendido." J.L.B.

"I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass, I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night." W.W.

"Estos navegantes hicieron que la nave atravesara mares desconocidos y peligrosos." J.L.B.

"These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas." W.W.

"Gira sobre algo que es más que la tierra que me sostiene." J.L.B.

"Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on". W.W.

"Atravesando los siete satélites". J.L.B.

"Speeding amid the seven satellites." W.W.

"Atravesando el espacio, atravesando el cielo y las estrellas." J.L.B.

"Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars." W.W.

It was a good decision to entrust Perez Celis with this Herculean task. The challenge was great but the answer has not been left behind. Other energies have been added to the natural energy of the poet who sung the essence. Among all the human types that embraced Whitman's soul, neither the gaucho of the pampas nor the Indian of all latitudes were missing. To the Leaves of Grass, Pérez Celis adds the grass of his own rides in his own land, La Pampa, prayer to the brotherhood of the creation. By giving us the image of Whitman, he gives us the image of a hemisphere that requested a new song, an unheard of song, valid for the here and now of the eternity. When we will no longer be here, Whitman's echoes will continue to sound and the images of Celis will remind us that God grants, as Leonardo wanted, all the gifts, at the price of our work.
Rafael Squirru.