Popo—
laying stolid with a plumage of stone,
crying from your body, with a quiet scream,
are thousands of years.in the bluish dawn of rose,
the sun hides its whitish head
with rainbow stripes,
like a hair band.Winds—
hidden monsters in the gallop,
throwing themselves onto you, yelling as they pillage,
humming songs and whistling
from unknown lands.
what secrets,
stored in the passing of generations,
are hidden inside you?
what scars
stapled in blood,
are engraved in individual stones?
Carry me inside your body, Popo,
stone-like,
conveying
your mysteries in my silence.
Popo—
furtive hoary giant,
the sun throws you a ray
in the darkening moments of dusk,
enlightening you fully.
I see in you now
ancient generations gone,
their blood spilled
from your vertebral column.
What plethora of travelers wandered on your silvery skin?
Have you counted their steps?
At your knees
death announces its journey,
and on your back,
this frigid, whitish inscrutability
pours . . .
I will have to begin to remember you
When someone else begins to discover you, the inside
Of your soft thighs above the stockings and when you laugh,
Developing the first pictures for his future dreams.
And I will have to forget you.
When someone else begins to remember you
When some other elses begin to discover you.
And my life is empty like a flower when they plucked
All its petals: yes, no, yes, no, yes.
And to be alone is to be in a place
Where we were never together, and to be alone is
To forget you are like this: to want to pay for two
In a bus and travel alone.
Now I shall cover the mirror like your pictures
And lie down to sleep. The birds of the sky will eat
The flesh of my sleep. The dogs will lick
My blood inside. You won’t see a thing outside.
Your story’s simple. You won’t see many loved ones when
you return, like an otter surfacing in a lake to catch its
breath. You won’t find words for short greetings, the seasons,
unsuccessful missions, white phosphorous lighting the
passion in soldiers’ eyes, a distant whistle on steep hillsides
you never climbed, children’s cane baskets floating silently
across a river basin, the way you have a constant burning
pain, the constellations discovered in a premonition,
Oriental love songs, the disappointment of everything we
were and will be. Believe me: this is your story. Later, I’ll tell
it again — only better.
Here is an island. Here is a house on stilts.
A black log house,
With a window open wide.
Green waves wash up to it,
But no one lives inside,
Not for many years.
Only I live here,
Drying seaweed
To cook for meals,
And I have lived for thousands of years.
But there where I used to live,
Where they used to love me,
They think that I have died,
They mourned and then forgot me.
But I live on and on …
under the thundering green,
I call my friends to meals
on a voiceless telephone.
And above all else, to look with innocence. As if nothing was happening, which is true.
But you, I want to look at you until your face escapes from my fear like a bird from the sharp edge of the night.
Like a girl drawn with pink chalk on a very old wall that is suddenly washed away by the rain.
Like when a flower blooms and reveals its heart that isn’t there.
Every gesture of my body and my voice aimed to make myself into the offering, the bouquet that the wind abandons on the porch.
Cover the memory of your face with the mask of who you will be and scare off the girl you once were.
The night of us both scattered with the fog. It’s the season of cold foods.
And the thirst, my memory is of the thirst, me underneath, at the bottom, in the hole, I drank, I remember.
To fall like a wounded animal in a place that was meant to be for revelations.
As if it meant nothing. No thing. Mouth zipped. Eyelids sewn. I forgot. Inside, the wind. Everything closed and the wind inside.
Under the black sun of silence the words burned slowly.
But the silence is true. That’s why I write. I’m alone and I write. No, I’m not alone. There’s somebody here, shivering.
Even if I say sun and moon and star I’m talking about things that happen to me. And what did I wish for? I wished for a perfect silence. That’s why I speak.
The night is shaped like a wolf’s scream.
Delight of losing one-self in the presaged image. I rose from my corpse, I went looking for who I am. Migrant of myself, I’ve gone towards the one who sleeps in a country of wind.
My endless falling into my endless falling where nobody waited for me –because when I saw who was waiting for me I saw no one but myself.
Something was falling into the silence. My last word was “I” but I was talking about the luminescent dawn.
Yellow flowers constellate a circle of blue earth. The water trembles, full of wind.
The blinding of day, yellow birds in the morning. A hand untangles the darkness, a hand drags the hair of a drowned woman that never stops going through the mirror. To return to the memory of the body, I have to return to my mourning bones, I have to understand what my voice is saying.
Original
I Y sobre todo mirar con inocencia. Como si no pasara nada, lo cual es cierto.
II Pero a ti quiero mirarte hasta que tu rostro se aleje de mi miedo como un pájaro del borde filoso de la noche.
III Como una niña de tiza rosada en un muro muy viejo súbitamente borrada por la lluvia.
IV Como cuando se abre una flor y revela el corazón que no tiene.
V Todos los gestos de mi cuerpo y de mi voz para hacer de mí la ofrenda, el ramo que abandona el viento en el umbral.
VI Cubre la memoria de tu cara con la máscara de la que serás y asusta a la niña que fuiste.
VII La noche de los dos se dispersó con la niebla. Es la estación de los alimentos fríos.
VIII Y la sed, mi memoria es de la sed, yo abajo, en el fondo, en el pozo, yo bebía, recuerdo.
IX Caer como un animal herido en el lugar que iba a ser de revelaciones.
X Como quien no quiere la cosa. Ninguna cosa. Boca cosida. Párpados cosidos. Me olvidé. Adentro el viento. Todo cerrado y el viento adentro.
XI Al negro sol del silencio las palabras se doraban.
XII Pero el silencio es cierto. Por eso escribo. Estoy sola y escribo. No, no estoy sola. Hay alguien aquí que tiembla.
XIII Aun si digo sol y luna y estrella me refiero a cosas que me suceden. ¿Y qué deseaba yo? Deseaba un silencio perfecto. Por eso hablo.
XIV La noche tiene la forma de un grito de lobo.
XV Delicia de perderse en la imagen presentida. Yo me levanté de mi cadáver, yo fui en busca de quien soy. Peregrina de mí, he ido hacia la que duerme en un país al viento.
XVI Mi caída sin fin a mi caída sin fin en donde nadie me aguardó pues al mirar quién me aguardaba no vi otra cosa que a mí misma.
XVII Algo caía en el silencio. Mi última palabra fue yo pero me refería al alba luminosa.
XVIII Flores amarillas constelan un círculo de tierra azul. El agua tiembla llena de viento.
XIX Deslumbramiento del día, pájaros amarillos en la mañana. Una mano desata tinieblas, una mano arrastra la cabellera de una ahogada que no cesa de pasar por el espejo. Volver a la memoria del cuerpo, he de volver a mis huesos en duelo, he de comprender lo que dice mi voz.
