In a trivial gesture, in a greeting,
in the simple glance, directed
in flight toward other eyes,
a golden, a fragile bridge is constructed.
This alone is enough.
Although it is only for a moment, it exists, exists.
This alone is enough.
Translation
El puente
En un gesto trivial, en un saludo,
en la simple mirada, dirigida
en vuelo, hacia otros ojos,
un áureo, un frágil puente se construye.
Baste esto sólo.
Aunque sea un instante, existe, existe.
Baste esto sólo.
It Will Not Be
–Circe Maia
Building the days one by one
it may well be that we lose an hour
— maybe just one hour —
or more or many more, but rarely are there extra.
They’re always missing, lost to us.
We would like to steal them from the night
but we are tired
already our eyelids are heavy.
So we go to sleep and the final image
— before diving into dreams —
is of a new day, with long hours
like plains stretching out, like the wind.
Pitiful lie.
There will be no days like the unexpected bubbles
surprising, open.
The juice of this past day
seeps through the edge of dawn
and is already gnawing on it.
Translation
No habrá
Construyendo los días uno a uno
bien puede ocurrir que nos falte una hora
– tal vez sólo una hora –
o más o muchas más, pero raro es que sobren.
Siempre faltan, nos faltan.
Quisiéramos robarlas a la noche
pero estamos cansados
nos pesan ya los párpados.
Nos dormimos así y la final imagen
– antes de zambullirnos en el sueño –
es para un día nuevo, de anchas horas
como llano estirado, como viento.
Lastimosa mentira.
No habrá días-burbujas imprevistos
sorprendentes, abiertos.
El zumo de este día transcurrido
se filtra por el borde de la madrugada
y ya la está royendo.
Los signos de pregunta
los ganchos
de las interrogantes
como anzuelos
van y vuelven vacíos.Renuncia.El agua, el aire mismo
y hasta la luz
son claras
respuestas
a otros signos.
The days
place their bandages.
The bloody traces
are smoothed and washed.
Do the wounded heal?
—Yes, totally—
(Though at nightfall
the wound bleeds
sometimes).
Translation
Cicatrices
Abiertas heridas
sobre la piel del tiempo¿Cicatrizan?Los días
depositan sus vendas.
Se alisan y se lavan
rastros sanguinolentos¿Se recobra el herido?
—Sí, totalmente—
(Aunque al caer la noche
la herida sangra
a veces.)
I lie down
in the face of what I’ll never be able to say
entranced by salt still existing in this battered body
I bet we weren’t able to name that rock a hundred thousand years ago
and she was rock in each stony fiber
she called herself rock until someone listened and said “rock”
until the silent sea wore away her firmness and made her sand
like her, I break up into pieces
I lie down
on earth
so still
so emergent
so everyone’s
the colors
that I feel
and am
a landscape, beating
submerged in its own echoes
in all our echoes
Translation
Me tumbo
Ante lo que nunca podré decir
Absorta de que aún exista sal en este cuerpo maltratado
¿A que no sabíamos nombrar aquella roca hace cien mil años?
Y ella era roca en cada fibra pétrea
Se dijo roca hasta que alguien la escuchó y le dijo “roca”
Hasta que el mar silencioso fue desmoronando su entereza y la volvió arena
Como ella me desarmo
Me tumbo
En la tierra
Tan quieta
Tan emergente
Tan de todos
los colores
Que me siento
Y soy
Paisaje latiendo
Sumergido en sus ecos propios
en todos los ecos nuestros
grant me an afternoon sadness
turn, tiny wheel of ardor, turn!
ii
the lost look of sadness
synecdoche of a love returning
iii
torrid fist straight to the chest
when it arrived in the stomach
opened itself into ten fleshy petals
and held me back
iv
i had a watery prairie
modest pool
of calming dark rings, rain-damp hair
moving slowly
to doze aware
of the tornado
v
fierce warmth enormous eyes
pure expressive faces
all mortgaged realism
concentration of thought
assimilated to swarm
…wander into familiar
walls
vi
nothing as predictable today as the body:
with warm compresses, with gentle caresses
my breasts draw near the fire
test the embrace in the silence
of this stiff ruggedness you will make defoliate me
I return: dressed
by your fingers
vii
all was revealed that evening
an order never existed
swirling like a sea
feigned a drowning
suddenly stopped on the surface
we saw at last the bodies
but we were going:
profile, back, end of the album.
stiff sparrows pile up on the balcony
and i will not place them in a crate
to carry them away
Translation
negativo del regreso
i
dame tristeza a la tarde
gira, diminuta rueda de ardor, gira!
ii
la mirada perdida de la tristeza
sinécdoque del amor que vuelve
iii
puño tórrido en la boca al pecho
cuando llegó al estómago
se abrió en diez carnosos pétalos
y me contuvo
iv
tuve llanura acuosa
modesto estanque
de serena ojera, cabello llovido
movimiento lento
donde dormitar consciente
del tornado
v
tibieza feroz ojos enormes
rostros de expresivo puro
todo realismo hipotecado
concentración de pensamiento
asimilado a enjambre
..deambulé contra paredes
reconocidas
vi
nada tan predecible hoy como el cuerpo:
con tibias compresas, con caricias dóciles
acerca mi pecho a la lumbre
prueba abrazar en silencio
de esta rígida rugosidad harás que me deshoje
regreso: desde tus dedos
vestida
vii
todo se supo a la tarde
nunca existió consigna
arremolinado como un mar
se simuló un ahogo
de pronto detenido en superficie
vimos al fin los cadáveres
pero nos estábamos yendo:
perfil, espalda, fin del álbum.
Location-free living and working. That’s the dream for a lot of people. For a long time I thought my dream was just to be able to work mostly from home – and that works for me since I live somewhere that’s like a dream in terms of just feeling contentment oozing from every pore almost every minute of every day. Idyllic countryside with a few modern comforts in the peaceful respite of Sweden. But the urge to pack up and spend a few months in Uruguay or spending a year in Australia … or Turkey… or wherever… that’s tempting to lifelong nomads like myself. I feel content and rooted, but the wanderlust never quite leaves.
I have written a lot and frequently about employers being flexible enough to allow employees to work from home. By extension, what’s the difference if you are “at home” or on the road – staying for long stretches in different places? Granted, it can be difficult if you have a regular, full-time job and need to liaise with people on a daily basis (and thus must have a guaranteed stable internet connection). But more and more, this is becoming a moot point.
This morning/middle of the night made for an awful commute. During the first third of the drive, the roads were clear, but every kilometer or so, I encountered big groups of deer playing in the road. I must have seen 100 deer in about 100 kilometers. I also saw a rabbit, which I have never seen around here, and two foxes. This winter, strangely, has been mostly devoid of moose. It occurred to me that my driving amounted to little more than dodging deer, which would not be a bad name for a video game. I got to use the whole road, just as the Seattle-based 1990s comedy sketch show, Almost Live encouraged Ballard drivers to do. You pay taxes on the whole thing – randomly weave all over the road!
On the second third of the road, most of it was covered with ice that had been covered over by snow. So many cars were off the road and so many tow trucks were pulling the cars out. The whole thing made me not only not want to drive but made me think seriously about the merits of living somewhere warmer – Hawai’i once more? Australia (perhaps much too warm)? Uruguay?
Thanks to the middle-of-night driving, I did not get to see my Seattle Seahawkswin against the San Francisco 49s in their playoff game. It sounds like the Seahawks did not play at their best in the first half, so I know I would just have been getting angry and sick watching it anyway. By the time I was done driving the first two-thirds of the seemingly interminable three-hour commute and stopped off at a petrol station in Uddevalla, the Seahawks had claimed their place in the Super Bowl (versus the Denver Broncos). All kinds of mentions of it are going around the internet already – but it seems funny that the two places in the entire US to pass laws making recreational marijuana legal are the two places that send their football teams to the Super Bowl.
