I came across this poem in H20 and the Waters of Forgetfulness, a book by Ivan Illich published in 1986. Illich, a former Catholic priest and critic of industrial society, is the intellectual who has had the biggest impact on me. I heard him deliver a condemnation of modern medicine as a medical student in Edinburgh in 1974 and have been reflecting on his writings ever since. I came across a reference to Illich’s book, which I didn’t know, in Robert Macfarlane’s book Is a River Alive? The answer is yes, but many, including many in Britain, are close to death.

Sandoval y Zapata (born between 1618 and 1629 and died in1671) was a Baroque Mexican poet and playwright, whose work, Wikipedia tells me, has been largely forgotten. Samuel Becket (1906-1989) has done a fine job of translating his poem.

Primal matter, of which you and I are momentarily composed, existed before humanity, before even the Earth, and will still be there long after both are gone. What better subject for a poem. It has been everything, seen unspeakable horrors, and been the most beautiful of life’s creations. Deaths and forms come and go, but it persists—beyond life, beyond death. The poem provides a fine introduction to primal matter.

To Primal Matter by Sandoval y Zapata translated by Samuel Beckett

Within how many metamorphoses, 

matter informed with life, hast thou had being?

Sweet-smelling snow of jessamine thou wast, 

and in the pallid ashes didst endure. 

Such horror by thee to thyself laid bare, 

king of flowers, the purple thou didst don. 

In such throng of dead forms thou didst not die, 

thy deathbound being by thee immortalized. 

For thou dost never wake to reason’s light, 

nor ever die before the invisible 

murderous onset of the winged hours. 

What, with so many deaths art thou not wise? 

What art thou, incorruptible nature, thou 

who hast been widowed thus of so much life?