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| 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.
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.
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| 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.
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.
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.
(Monaghan, Irlanda, 1954)
POETA/NOVELISTA/ENSAYISTA/TRADUCTORA/
DOCENTE/PERIODISTA/LOCUTORA
