translation

i. mood indigo

Standard

i. mood indigo
–Ntozake Shange

it hasnt always been this way
ellington was not a street
robeson no mere memory
du bois walked up my father’s stairs
hummed some tune over me
sleeping in the company of men
who changed the world
it wasnt always like this
why ray barretto used to be a side-man
& dizzy’s hair was not always grey
i remember            i was there
i listened in the company of men
politics as necessary as collards
music even in our dreams
our house was filled with all kinda folks
our windows were not cement or steel
our doors opened like our daddy’s arms
held us safe & loved
children growing in the company of men
old southern men & young slick ones
sonny til was not a boy
the clovers no rag-tag orphans
our crooners/ we belonged to a whole world
nkrumah was no foreigner
virgil aikens was not the only fighter
it hasnt always been this way
ellington was not a street

 

Photo by Kim Daniels on Unsplash

far memory

Standard

far memory
–Lucille Clifton

1
convent
my knees recall the pockets
worn into the stone floor,
my hands, tracing against
the wall their original name, remember
the cold brush of brick, and the smell
of the brick powdery and wet
and the light finding its way in
through the high bars.
and also the sisters singing
at matins, their sweet music
the voice of the universe at peace
and the candles their light the light
at the beginning of creation
and the wonderful simplicity of prayer
smooth along the wooden beads
and certainly attended.
2
someone inside me remembers
that my knees must be hidden away
that my hair must be shorn
so that vanity will not test me
that my fingers are places of prayer
and are holy that my body is promised
to something more certain
than myself
3
again
born in the year of war
on the day of perpetual help.
come from the house
of stillness
through the soft gate
of a silent mother.
come to a betraying father.
come to a husband who would one day
rise and enter a holy house.
come to wrestle with you again,
passion, old disobedient friend,
through the secular days and nights
of another life.
4
trying to understand this life
who did i fail, who
did i cease to protect
that i should wake each morning
facing the cold north?
perhaps there is a cart
somewhere in history
of children crying “sister
save us” as she walks away.
the woman walks into my dreams
dragging her old habit.
i turn from her, shivering,
to begin another afternoon
of rescue, rescue.
5
sinnerman
horizontal one evening
on the cold stone,
my cross burning into
my breast, did i dream
through my veil
of his fingers digging
and is this the dream
again, him, collarless
over me, calling me back
to the stones of this world
and my own whispered
hosanna?
6
karma
the habit is heavy.
you feel its weight
pulling around your ankles
for a hundred years.
the broken vows
hang against your breasts,
each bead a word
that beats you.
even now
to hear the words
defend
protect
goodbye
lost or
alone
is to be washed in sorrow.
and in this life
there is no retreat
no sanctuary
no whole abiding
sister.
7
gloria mundi
so knowing,
what is known?
that we carry our baggage
in our cupped hands
when we burst through
the waters of our mother.
that some are born
and some are brought
to the glory of this world.
that it is more difficult
than faith
to serve only one calling
one commitment
one devotion
in one life.

 

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

residue

Standard

Residue
–Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Translation

Resíduo

Photo by Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash

Problems of Translation: Problems of Language

Standard

Problems of Translation: Problems of Language

–June Jordan

1
I turn to my Rand McNally Atlas.
Europe appears right after the Map of the World.
All of Italy can be seen page 9.
Half of Chile page 29.
I take out my ruler.
In global perspective Italy
amounts to less than half an inch.
Chile measures more than an inch and a quarter
of an inch.
Approximately
Chile is as long as China
is wide:
Back to the Atlas:
Chunk of China page 17.
All of France page 5: As we say in New York:
Who do France and Italy know
at Rand McNally?
    2
I see the four mountains in Chile higher
than any mountain of North America.
I see Ojos del Salado the highest.
I see Chile unequivocal as crystal thread.
I see the Atacama Desert dry in Chile more than the rest
of the world is dry.
I see Chile dissolving into water.
I do not see what keeps the blue land of Chile
out of blue water.
I do not see the hand of Pablo Neruda on the blue land.
    3
As the plane flies flat to the trees
below Brazil
below Bolivia
below five thousand miles below
my Brooklyn windows
and beside the shifted Pacific waters
welled away from the Atlantic at Cape Horn
La Isla Negra that is not an island La
Isla Negra
that is not black
is stone and stone of Chile
feeding clouds to color
scale and undertake terrestrial forms
of everything unspeakable
    4
In your country
how do you say copper
for my country?
    5
Blood rising under the Andes and above
the Andes blood
spilling down the rock
corrupted by the amorality
of so much space
that leaves such little trace of blood
rising to the irritated skin the face
of the confession far
from home:
I confess I did not resist interrogation.
I confess that by the next day I was no longer sure
of my identity.
I confess I knew the hunger.
I confess I saw the guns.
I confess I was afraid.
I confess I did not die.
    6
What you Americans call a boycott
of the junta?
Who will that feed?
    7
Not just the message but the sound.
    8
Early morning now and I remember
corriendo a la madrugada from a different
English poem,
I remember from the difficulties of the talk
an argument
athwart the wine the dinner and the dancing
meant to welcome you
you did not understand the commonplace expression
of my heart:
the truth is in the life
la verdad de la vida
Early morning:
do you say la mañanita?
But then we lose
the idea of the sky uncurling to the light:
Early morning and I do not think we lose:
the rose we left behind
broken to a glass of water on the table
at the restaurant stands
even sweeter
por la mañanita

not forgotten

Standard

Not Forgotten
–Toi Derricotte

I love the way the black ants use their dead.
They carry them off like warriors on their steel
backs. They spend hours struggling, lifting,
dragging (it is not grisly as it would be for us,
to carry them back to be eaten),
so that every part will be of service. I think of
my husband at his father’s grave—
the grass had closed
over the headstone, and the name had disappeared. He took out
his pocket knife and cut the grass away, he swept it
with his handkerchief to make it clear. “Is this the way
we’ll be forgotten?” And he bent down over the grave and wept.

 

Photo by Salmen Bejaoui on Unsplash

 

an aspect

Standard

An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire
–Gwendolyn Brooks

In a package of minutes there is this We.
How beautiful.
Merry foreigners in our morning,
we laugh, we touch each other,
are responsible props and posts.
A physical light is in the room.
Because the world is at the window
we cannot wonder very long.
You rise. Although
genial, you are in yourself again.
I observe
your direct and respectable stride.
You are direct and self-accepting as a lion
in Afrikan velvet. You are level, lean,
remote.
There is a moment in Camaraderie
when interruption is not to be understood.
I cannot bear an interruption.
This is the shining joy;
the time of not-to-end.
On the street we smile.
We go
in different directions
down the imperturbable street.

 

Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash

coherence in consequence

Standard

Coherence in Consequence
–Claudia Rankine

Imagine them in black, the morning heat losing within this day that floats. And always there is the being, and the not-seeing on their way to—

The days they approach and their sharpest aches will wrap experience until knowledge is translucent, the frost on which they find themselves slipping. Never mind the loose mindless grip of their forms reflected in the eye-watering hues of the surface, these two will survive in their capacity to meet, to hold the other beneath the plummeting, in the depths below each step full of avoidance. What they create will be held up, will resume: the appetite is bigger than joy. indestructible. for never was it independent from who they are. who will be.

Were we ever to arrive at knowing the other as the same pulsing compassion would break the most orthodox heart.

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

 

a winter twilight

Standard

A Winter Twilight
–Angelina Weld Grimké

A silence slipping around like death,
Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh,
a breath; One group of trees, lean,
naked and cold,
Inking their cress ‘gainst a
sky green-gold;

One path that knows where the
corn flowers were;
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;
And over it softly leaning down,
One star that I loved ere the
fields went brown

Photo by Giorgi Iremadze on Unsplash

 

insomnia etiquette

Standard

Insomnia Etiquette
–Rita Dove

There’s a movie on, so I watch it.

The usual white people
in love, distress. The usual tears.
Good camera work, though:
sunshine waxing the freckled curves
of a pear, a clenched jaw—
more tragedy, then.

I get up for some scotch and Stilton.
I don’t turn on the lights.
I like moving through the dark
while the world sleeps on,
serene as a stealth bomber
nosing through clouds…

call it a preemptive strike,
“a precautionary measure
so sadly necessary in these perilous times”.
I don’t call it anything
but greediness: the weird glee
of finding my way without incident.

I know tomorrow I will regret
having the Stilton. I will regret
not being able to find
a book to get lost in,
and all those years I could get lost
in anything. Until then

it’s just me and you,
Brother Night—moonless,
plunked down behind enemy lines
with no maps, no matches.
The woods deep.
Cheers.

 

Photo by James Gibson on Unsplash

bitterness forgotten

Standard

Bitterness Forgotten
–Inga Kuznetsova

Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash