Mary O’Donnell, 2 poemas 2 (+2)

Fotografía de Holly Lynton

EDÉN

Alguien había plantado tiempo atrás manzanas de Bath

en el huerto Protestante de mi infancia.

El huerto de mi madre. Las avispas

devoraron aquel dulzor abandonado

que ella nunca veía cuando se marchaba,

sin ocuparse de nosotros que ganduleábamos

en las orquillas de árboles viejos, emperadores,

de vuelta a casa tras la guerra. 

Llegar allí era batallar con ortigas,

con zumbido de insectos, abejorros y ranas,

nuestros propios mitos de serpientes. Éramos tropas

en marcha, Aníbal cruzando los Alpes

con perros en lugar de elefantes. A veces

el temor nos paraba, hasta que alguien hacía de Alejandro,

simulando valor para mantener a las tropas con ánimo.

Ante nosotros

se extendía una India – manzanos, la pócima

de las pomas de piel cremosa y venas encendidas.

Todo cuanto queríamos, linternas con piel rubí:

esos mapas de los sentidos, un estallido

de antídoto en las lenguas,

aquel bello escozor. 

Traducción de Inés Praga-Terente

EDEN

Someone long ago had planted Beauty of Bath

in the Protestant orchard of my childhood.

My mother’s orchard. Wasps

devoured that neglected sweetness

she never saw as she drove out,

forgetful of us as we lounged in the crotches

of old trees, emperors, home from war.

To get there was to do battle with nettles,

buzzing insects, cock-chafers and frogs,

our own myths of serpents. We were troops

on the march, Hannibal crossing the Alps

with dogs for elephants. Sometimes

fear set us back, until someone became an Alexander,

play-acting courage to keep the troops in the mood.

Ahead

lay an India – apple-trees, the potioned

poms, flesh creamy and flush-veined.

All we wanted, ruby-fleshed lanterns:

such maps of the senses, an antidotal

release on our tongues,

that beautiful sting.

Fotografía de Holly Lynton

ÁGUILA RATONERA

Vino en Agosto, hacía surcos bajo el sol

sobre el extenso campo, a baja altura para ver

el festón de la punta del ala,

ese palmo opaco que se abría mientras planeaba y bajaba

en un arco. A veces se posaba en los cables eléctricos

que adornaban el cielo crepitando,

se arrebujaba un rato, una pausa

para empezar el vuelo, para reanudar aquel grito anhelante.

Cruzaba como cimitarras bajo estelas de nubes,

pirata del cielo en los días robados, dorados.

Y en el jardín nosotros, nunca del todo absortos

tomando el sol o desenterrando patatas nuevas

del dadivoso suelo, mirábamos arriba y arriba,

hacia un mundo que aún vertía lo salvaje de su copa.

Traducción de Inés Praga-Terente

BUZZARD

Came August, it furrowed beneath the sun,

above the big field, low enough to sight

the scallop of wing-tip, that opaque span

widening as it steadied in a downwards

sweep. Sometimes it sat on electric cables

that festooned and crackled across the sky,

shouldered in on itself briefly, a pause

to fall to flight, resume that longing cry.

It cut like scimitars beneath cloud-trails,

sky-pirate to the stolen, golden days.

And we in the garden, never too lost

in sunbathing, or unrubbling new potatoes

from the giving ground, looked up, and up

at a world still tilting wildness from its cup.

de Those April Fevers, Arc Publications, 2015

B O N U S  T R A C K (x2)

BUENOS AIRES AUTUMN

The trees here are playing with fire,

but on my island, the cold sap rises.

All day in this heat my flesh

is a violin, the strings melt

and are songless. 

Something leaves me 

or arrives, I cannot be certain.

The Rio de la Plata 

sends mud-songs to the estuary,

intent on harmony with other rivers.

Eva Peron rests in La Recoleta,

where afternoon crowds leave posies 

wrapped in paper, green string.

In Puerto Madero, the air is smokey

from the steakhouses 

near the Puente de la Mujer,

the water of the Salado brown

with a sediment of base notes. 

In Ireland, the rivers chant one note, 

each minds its own sound-passage

to the sea, rises in wet spring-times

of fluted birch, nippled oak-buds

which will not soften until May.

In the south I feel the breath of a god 

about to close passageways of air. 

Sing on, some people say,

Be silent, say I, looking 

to cross the equator in a rush of clouds

to the drenched hill-woods 

and mire of my own fields. 

*

MY MOTHER SAYS NO ON BLOOMSDAY

It is not easy, it is not easy

to wheel an old woman to the shower

on Bloomsday, when the world

and Molly cry yes, yes, yes,

and she is saying no, no, no,

because what’s left of her life

depends on the freedom of No.

How Joycean of her

to resist the cleaned-up conscience

of filial attention, your need

to fix her taints and odours,

wash hair and teeth,

attend to toes when all she wants

is to float on the lily-leaf of her own

green bedspread, drowsing Molly

in a tangle of snow-white hair.

Now, dreams enclose her

more than talk of showers or meals,

the flowing waters of memory

rise and touch her skin

just where the mattress eases

spine and bones

in that yellow-walled room.

Hello, my darling, she greets

his photograph, flinging kisses

towards mottled frame.

To her then,

the logic of love,

to her, the logic of No,

her tongue untameable.

Leído en THE GUARDIAN

de Massacre of the Birds, Salmon Poetry, 2020

Mary O'Donnell 

(Monaghan, Irlanda, 1954)

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