Anthology

Las cosas que mueren jamás resucitan,
las cosas que mueren no tornan jamás.
¡Se quiebran los vasos y el vidrio que queda
es polvo por siempre y por siempre será!

Cuando los capullos caen de la rama
dos veces seguidas no florecerán…
¡Las flores tronchadas por el viento impío
se agotan por siempre, por siempre jamás!

¡Los días que fueron, los días perdidos,
los días inertes ya no volverán!
¡Qué tristes las horas que se desgranaron
bajo el aletazo de la soledad!

¡Qué tristes las sombras, las sombras nefastas,
las sombras creadas por nuestra maldad!
¡Oh, las cosas idas, las cosas marchitas,
las cosas celestes que así se nos van!

¡Corazón… silencia!… ¡Cúbrete de llagas!…
-de llagas infectas- ¡cúbrete de mal!…
¡Que todo el que llegue se muera al tocarte,
corazón maldito que inquietas mi afán!

¡Adiós para siempre mis dulzuras todas!
¡Adiós mi alegría llena de bondad!
¡Oh, las cosas muertas, las cosas marchitas,
las cosas celestes que no vuelven más! …

No, no y no; por el amor de Dios, basta. ¿Por qué te empeñas en que cambie de resolución? ¡Mil veces, no! Señor mío, eres excelente, eres inimitable. Pero, mi amigo, no es grano de anís que te haya dejado por el general Bolívar; dejar a un marido sin tus méritos no sería nada. ¿Crees por un momento que, después de ser amada por este general durante años, de tener la seguridad de que poseo su corazón, voy a preferir ser la esposa del Padre, del Hijo o del Espíritu Santo o de los tres juntos? Sé muy bien que no puedo unirme a él por las leyes del honor, como tú las llamas, pero, ¿crees que me siento menos honrada porque sea mi amante y no mi marido? ¡Oh! No vivo para los prejuicios de la sociedad, que sólo fueron inventados para que nos atormentemos el uno al otro.

Déjame en paz, mi querido inglés. Déjame en paz. Hagamos en cambio otra cosa. Nos casaremos cuando estemos en el cielo, pero en esta tierra ¡no! ¿Crees que la solución es mala? En nuestro hogar celestial, nuestras vidas serán enteramente espirituales. Entonces, todo será muy inglés, porque la monotonía está reservada para tu nación (en amor, claro está, porque sois muy ávidos para los negocios). Amas sin placer. Conversas sin gracia, caminas sin prisa, te sientas con cautela y no te ríes ni de tus propias bromas. Son atributos divinos, pero yo, miserable mortal que puedo reírme de mí misma, me río de ti también, con toda esa seriedad inglesa. ¿Cómo padecer en el cielo? Tanto como si me fuera a vivir a Inglaterra o Constantinopla. Eres más celoso que un portugués. Por eso no te quiero. ¿Tengo mal gusto?

Pero basta de bromas. En serio, sin ligereza, con toda escrupulosidad, la verdad y la pureza de una inglesa, nunca más volveré a tu lado. Eres católico, yo soy atea y esto es nuestro gran obstáculo religioso; quiero a otro y esto es una razón mayor y todavía más fuerte. ¿Ves con qué exactitud razono?

Siempre tuya,

Manuela.

¿Cómo definiría el término intelectual?
-Si por intelectual entendemos todo aquel que trabaja con su cabeza y no con sus manos, un empleado de un banco es un intelectual, y Miguel Ángel no. Hoy, con los ordenadores, cualquiera es un intelectual. Por eso, no creo que la cuestión tenga nada que ver con profesiones o clases sociales.
Para mí, un intelectual es alguien que produce nuevos conocimientos haciendo uso de su creatividad.
Un campesino, cuando comprende que un nuevo tipo de injerto puede producir una nueva clase de manzanas, está desarrollando una actividad intelectual, mientras que un catedrático de filosofía que se pasa la vida repitiendo una misma clase sobre Heidegger no tiene por qué ser un intelectual.
La creatividad crítica —el espíritu crítico para analizar lo que hacemos o inventar formas mejores de hacerlo— es la única vara para medir la actividad intelectual

Leer te hace ver más lejos, te hace ver a los ojos de los otros, como iguales, sean del sexo que sean, la religión que sea, la condición social que tengan. Leer abre tu mente y no permite que se llene de polvosos prejuicios, de malas intenciones, de ideas preconcebidas. Pero lo lamento, no te hace ser mejor a menos que quieras ser mejor.

We waved them off long ago. So why Do they who are no longer here Still wave to us? The time to sow Approaches, and the land awaits seeds As the wind waits for weeds, waving Them with purpose, as dilapidated roofs Waited for us. We waved our hand To those distant, flown over the edge Of the earth; and we stood beneath The ripe wind that is born here And roams here, as well, until The words on my starling tongue, Numb from mint, go mute, and Our enormous dreams gutter out.

¡Desgraciado Almirante! Tu pobre América,
tu india virgen y hermosa de sangre cálida,
la perla de tus sueños, es una histérica
de convulsivos nervios y frente pálida.

Un desastroso espirítu posee tu tierra:
donde la tribu unida blandió sus mazas,
hoy se enciende entre hermanos perpetua guerra,
se hieren y destrozan las mismas razas.

Al ídolo de piedra reemplaza ahora
el ídolo de carne que se entroniza,
y cada día alumbra la blanca aurora
en los campos fraternos sangre y ceniza.

Desdeñando a los reyes nos dimos leyes
al son de los cañones y los clarines,
y hoy al favor siniestro de negros reyes
fraternizan los Judas con los Caínes.

Bebiendo la esparcida savia francesa
con nuestra boca indígena semiespañola,
día a día cantamos la Marsellesa
para acabar danzando la Carmañola.

Las ambiciones pérfidas no tienen diques,
soñadas libertades yacen deshechas.
¡Eso no hicieron nunca nuestros caciques,
a quienes las montañas daban las flechas! .

Ellos eran soberbios, leales y francos,
ceñidas las cabezas de raras plumas;
¡ojalá hubieran sido los hombres blancos
como los Atahualpas y Moctezumas!

Cuando en vientres de América cayó semilla
de la raza de hierro que fue de España,
mezcló su fuerza heroica la gran Castilla
con la fuerza del indio de la montaña.

¡Pluguiera a Dios las aguas antes intactas
no reflejaran nunca las blancas velas;
ni vieran las estrellas estupefactas
arribar a la orilla tus carabelas!

Libre como las águilas, vieran los montes
pasar los aborígenes por los boscajes,
persiguiendo los pumas y los bisontes
con el dardo certero de sus carcajes.

Que más valiera el jefe rudo y bizarro
que el soldado que en fango sus glorias finca,
que ha hecho gemir al zipa bajo su carro
o temblar las heladas momias del Inca.

La cruz que nos llevaste padece mengua;
y tras encanalladas revoluciones,
la canalla escritora mancha la lengua
que escribieron Cervantes y Calderones.

Cristo va por las calles flaco y enclenque,
Barrabás tiene esclavos y charreteras,
y en las tierras de Chibcha, Cuzco y Palenque
han visto engalonadas a las panteras.

Duelos, espantos, guerras, fiebre constante
en nuestra senda ha puesto la suerte triste:
¡Cristóforo Colombo, pobre Almirante,
ruega a Dios por el mundo que descubriste!

A veces quiero preguntarte cosas,
y me intimidas tú con la mirada,
y retorno al silencio contagiada
del tímido perfume de tus rosas.

A veces quise no soñar contigo,
y cuanto más quería más soñaba,
por tus versos que yo saboreaba,
tú el rico de poemas, yo el mendigo.

Pero yo no adivino lo que invento,
y nunca inventaré lo que adivino
del nombre esclavo de mi pensamiento.

Adivino que no soy tu contento,
que a veces me recuerdas, imagino,
y al írtelo a decir mi voz no siento.

I can tell you that some things vanish

without ceremony—a town can lose its name

and keep the post office, or keep the name

and lose the rest. There still marks a point

on the map where it began, but the work’s long done;

the road grown over with bleeding hearts and alder.

You can walk there. The gravel crunches

under the phantom buzz of chainsaws, and fog

licks at the gridded hillside like an old debt.

Each stump is a headstone,

a biography in every ring. You think you see

a form in the mist—a thrashing elk, or a bobcat

or the shape of work that once

held the valley upright. Every road here

leads to another road that stops

at a locked gate, a washout,

a view of nothing but cloud.

Acceptance lives somewhere past that.

They say the forest heals, some say faster

than the heart—Scotch broom,

thistle, the thin gray line of runoff

that feeds the river in winter.

If there’s holiness in this, it’s in the rot,

the glacial comeback of what was taken.

Once I dreamed the salmon spoke

in a tongue I almost understood—

a language of loss, but also return.

They swam upstream through

clear-cuts and culverts, their bodies bright

as stripped wire, and I woke thinking

maybe the land dreams us too,

and stirs awake each time we leave

another scar across its ribs.

Docks rust and rot beside the river,

the paper mill sighing its white smoke

like a ghost rehearsing its final exit.

On the coast: blown glass, fish smells

and salt wind—the gulls screaming

for everything we drop.

Sometimes I go there just to see

where the road gives out at the jetty,

where the land admits defeat. Or victory.

No revelation, only the dull

thought that everything moves

toward water, then into it.

I’m somewhere inland still,

standing in the rain, or threat of it,

watching a fern push through the asphalt.

The sky        as always         undecided

gray, opening, closing—

slack mouth of forgiveness, of apology.

Al cabo, son muy pocas las palabras
que de verdad nos duelen, y muy pocas
las que consiguen alegrar el alma.
Y son también muy pocas las personas
que mueven nuestro corazón, y menos
aún las que lo mueven mucho tiempo.
Al cabo, son poquísimas las cosas
que de verdad importan en la vida:
poder querer a alguien, que nos quieran
y no morir después que nuestros hijos.

Mi cuate Mi socio Mi hermano

Aparcero Camarado Compañero

Mi pata M´hijito Paisano…

He aquí mis vecinos. He aquí mis hermanos.

Las mismas caras latinoamericanas de cualquier punto de America Latina:

Indoblanquinegros Blanquinegrindios Y negrindoblancos

Rubias bembonas Indios barbudos Y negros lacios

Todos se quejan: -¡Ah, si en mi país no hubiese tanta política…! -¡Ah, si en mi país no hubiera gente paleolítica…! -¡Ah, si en mi país no hubiese militarismo, ni oligarquía ni chauvinismo ni burocracia ni hipocresía ni clerecía ni antropofagia… -¡Ah, si en mi país…

Alguien pregunta de dónde soy (Yo no respondo lo siguiente):

Nací cerca del Cuzco admiro a Puebla me inspira el ron de las Antillas canto con voz argentina creo en Santa Rosa de Lima y en los orishás de Bahía.

Yo no coloreé mi Continente ni pinté verde a Brasil amarillo Perú roja Bolivia.

Yo no tracé líneas territoriales separando al hermano del hermano.

Poso la frente sobre Río Grande me afirmo pétreo sobre el Cabo de Hornos hundo mi brazo izquierdo en el Pacífico y sumerjo mi diestra en el Atlántico.

Por las costas de oriente y occidente doscientas millas entro a cada Océano sumerjo mano y mano y así me aferro a nuestro Continente en un abrazo Latinoamericano.

Todos los amores imposibles son eternos,
el tiempo no los toca
y no existen traiciones entre los amores imposibles.
Amo con toda intensidad, amo sin límites
a cada uno de mis amores imposibles.
A veces el olor del café trastoca el orden de los años
y voy a dar a la madrugada
de un resplandor que a mí me alumbra
o de pronto la voz de Janis Joplin
me ensarta en una noche cítrica,
de alambre,
la noche del hechizo,
puede ser una forma precisa de mecerse el viento entre los árboles
y la danza del cuerpo,
la eterna danza de un cuerpo eterno
entre la eterna danza de la brisa.
Los eternos amores imposibles
no se tocan, no se cruzan, no pueden verse entre sí,
no existen los celos entre los amores imposibles,
son perfectos los amores imposibles.

I received a neatly typed letter, with not a single grammatical error and no fancy phrases, although it was perhaps a tad overly respectful: he addresses me throughout using the very formal Vossa Senhoria.

The letter is from Fernando Bernardes, who apologizes for “taking up my valuable time.” He writes: “I am a modest man, working as a night watchman on construction sites, and reading has become my companion, helping to keep me awake through the night.” He goes on to say that a friend lent him one of my “excellent” books, although he doesn’t say which one. And then he asks if I could send him a few used books because “I earn very little, and certainly not enough for me to buy new ones.”

The letter surprised and touched me. What is such a man doing working as a night watchman?

I phoned the writer Umberto Peregrino, director of the National Book Institute, and told him about the letter, and he immediately ordered a selection of books to be sent to the man.

May I ask my readers a favor? Could you also surprise Fernando Bernardes by sending him some used books? His address is: Rua Imarui, 124, Bangu. Thank you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

Everything is fine: a means to endure news cycles, historic cycles, menstrual

cycles. This is walking home after work, crawling into bed naked. Night, quiet with

snow. I am an empty bank account. I am a pylon glowing in the dark. I am a primal scream. I am not here.

The body speaks first. If that doesn’t work, the mind empties: a crate of crabs scuttling

toward nothingness. Authoritarianism blossoms like a corpse flower: foul men

spread their stench across the globe. I remember these songs. It’s all on fire.

A meteor // a virus // a bomb like a dark-eyed angel hurtles toward us.

I’d like to see the ocean lap against a glacier before the end. I’d like to see the northern

lights. I’d like to watch effigies of foul men burn in the desert. I’d like to be there, reel there, at the end.

A scorching day, a doghouse and a dog on a chain.
A full dish of water a few steps off.
But the chain is too short and the dog can’t reach.
Let’s add one more detail to the picture,
the much longer,
less visible chains
that allow us freely to pass by

Brother, my precious friend! All is settled! I am sentenced to four years’ hard labour in the fortress (I believe, of Orenburg) and after that to serve as a private. Today, the 22nd of December, we were taken to the Semionov Drill Ground. There the sentence of death was read to all of us, we were told to kiss the Cross, our swords were broken over our heads, and our last toilet was made (white shirts). Then three were tied to the pillar for execution. I was the sixth. Three at a time were called out; consequently, I was in the second batch and no more than a minute was left me to live. I remembered you, brother, and all yours; during the last minute you, you alone, were in my mind, only then I realised how I love you, dear brother mine! I also managed to embrace Plescheyev and Durov who stood close to me and to say good-bye to them. Finally the retreat was sounded, and those tied to the pillar were led back, and it was announced to us that His Imperial Majesty granted us our lives. Then followed the present sentences. Palm alone has been pardoned, and returns with his old rank to the army.

I was just told, dear brother, that today or tomorrow we are to be sent off. I asked to see you. But I was told that this was impossible; I may only write you this letter: make haste and give me a reply as soon as you can. I am afraid that you may somehow have got to know of our death sentence. From the windows of the prison-van, when we were taken to the Semionov Drill Ground, I saw a multitude of people; perhaps the news reached you, and you suffered for me. Now you will be easier on my account. Brother! I have not become downhearted or low-spirited. Life is everywhere life, life in ourselves, not in what is outside us. There will be people near me, and to be a man among people and remain a man for ever, not to be downhearted nor to fall in whatever misfortunes may befall me — this is life; this is the task of life. I have realised this. This idea has entered into my flesh and into my blood. Yes, it ’s true! The head which was creating, living with the highest life of art, which had realised and grown used to the highest needs of the spirit, that head has already been cut off from my shoulders. There remain the memory and the images created but not yet incarnated by me. They will lacerate me, it is true! But there remains in me my heart and the same flesh and blood which can also love, and suffer, and desire, and remember, and this, after all, is life. On voit le soleil! Now, good-bye, brother! Don’t grieve for me!

Now about material things: my books (I have the Bible still) and several sheets of my manuscript, the rough plan of the play and the novel (and the finished story A Child’s Tale) have been taken away from me, and in all probability will be got by you. I also leave my overcoat and old clothes, if you send to fetch them. Now, brother, I may perhaps have to march a long distance. Money is needed. My dear brother, when you receive this letter, and if there is any possibility of getting some money, send it me at once. Money I need now more than air (for one particular purpose). Send me also a few lines. Then if the money from Moscow comes, — remember me and do not desert me. Well, that is all! I have debts, but what can I do?

Kiss your wife and children. Remind them of me continually; see that they do not forget me. Perhaps, we shall yet meet some time! Brother, take care of yourself and of your family, live quietly and carefully. Think of the future of your children. . . . Live positively. There has never yet been working in me such a healthy abundance of spiritual life as now. But will my body endure? I do not know. I am going away sick, I suffer from scrofula. But never mind! Brother, I have already gone through so much in life that now hardly anything can frighten me. Let come what may! At the first opportunity I shall let you know about myself. Give the Maikovs my farewell and last greetings. Tell them that I thank them all for their constant interest in my fate. Say a few words for me, as warm as possible, as your heart will prompt you, to Eugenia Petrovna. I wish her much happiness, and shall ever remember her with grateful respect. Press the hands of Nikolay Apollonovich and Apollon Maikov, and also of all the others. Find Yanovsky. Press his hand, thank him. Finally, press the hands of all who have not forgotten me. And those who have forgotten me — remember me to them also. Kiss our brother Kolya. Write a letter to our brother Andrey and let him know about me. Write also to Uncle and Aunt. This I ask you in my own name, and greet them for me. Write to our sisters: I wish them happiness.

And maybe, we shall meet again some time, brother! Take care of yourself, go on living, for the love of God, until we meet. Perhaps some time we shall embrace each other and recall our youth, our golden time that was, our youth and our hopes, which at this very instant I am tearing out from my heart with my blood, to bury them. Can it indeed be that I shall never take a pen into my hands? I think that after the four years there may be a possibility. I shall send you everything that I may write, if I write anything, my God! How many imaginations, lived through by me, created by me anew, will perish, will be extinguished in my brain or will be spilt as poison in my blood! Yes, if I am not allowed to write, I shall perish. Better fifteen years of prison with a pen in my hands!

Write to me more often, write more details, more, more facts. In every letter write about all kinds of family details, of trifles, don’t forget. This will give me hope and life. If you knew how your letters revived me here in the fortress. These last two months and a half, when it was forbidden to write or receive a letter, have been very hard on me. I was ill. The fact that you did not send me money now and then worried me on your account; it meant you yourself were in great need ! Kiss the children once again; their lovely little faces do not leave my mind. Ah, that they may be happy! Be happy yourself too, brother, be happy!

But do not grieve, for the love of God, do not grieve for me! Do believe that I am not downhearted, do remember that hope has not deserted me. In four years there will be a mitigation of my fate. I shall be a private soldier, — no longer a prisoner, and remember that some time I shall embrace you. I was to-day in the grip of death for three-quarters of an hour; I have lived it through with that idea; I was at the last instant and now I live again!

If any one has bad memories of me, if I have quarrelled with any one, if I have created in any one an unpleasant impression — tell them they should forget it, if you manage to meet them. There is no gall or spite in my soul; I should dearly love to embrace any one of my former friends at this moment. It is a comfort, I experienced it to-day when saying good-bye to my dear ones before death. I thought at that moment that the news of the execution would kill you. But now be easy, I am still alive and shall live in the future with the thought that some time I shall embrace you. Only this is now in my mind.

What are you doing? What have you been thinking to-day? Do you know about us? How cold it was today!

Ah, if only my letter reaches you soon. Otherwise I shall be for four months without news of you. I saw the envelopes in which you sent money during the last two months; the address was written in your hand, and I was glad that you were well.

When I look back at the past and think how much time has been wasted in vain, how much time was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in ignorance of how to live, how I did not value time, how often I sinned against my heart and spirit, — my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute might have been an age of happiness. Si jeunesse savait! Now, changing my life, I am being reborn into a new form. Brother! I swear to you that I shall not lose hope, and shall preserve my spirit and heart in purity. I shall be reborn to a better thing. That is my whole hope, my whole comfort!

The life in prison has already sufficiently killed in me the demands of the flesh which were not wholly pure; I took little heed of myself before. Now privations are nothing to me, and, therefore, do not fear that any material hardship will kill me. This cannot be! Ah! To have health!

Good-bye, good-bye, my brother! When shall I write you again? You will receive from me as detailed an account as possible of my journey. If I can only preserve my health, then everything will be right!

Well, good-bye, good-bye, brother! I embrace you closely, I kiss you closely. Remember me without pain in your heart. Do not grieve, I pray you, do not grieve for me! In the next letter I shall tell you how I go on. Remember then what I have told you: plan out your life, do not waste it, arrange your destiny, think of your children. Oh, to see you, to see you! Good-bye! Now I tear myself away from everything that was dear; it is painful to leave it! It is painful to break oneself in two, to cut the heart in two. Good-bye! Good-bye! But I shall see you, I am convinced — I hope; do not change, love me, do not let your memory grow cold, and the thought of your love will be the best part of my life. Goodbye, good-bye, once more! Good-bye to all!

Your brother,

Fiodor Dostoevsky.

I went to Ulta Beauty to buy perfume
I was horny and I wanted the universe inside my nose
The lit shelves and raised hair
Press a sensual towering cloud
Swells and pitches of  blood
This one smells like observation deck
This one smells like Florida toilet
Stinky zoo
Albino gator
There was no tester for Ariana Grande’s “thank u next” signature scent
I Googled its reviews:
“Smells like sexy pickles and pears”
We had everything on earth
Pupae, larvae, tiger moths
Stick bugs and shrimp plants and giant millipedes, jellyfish
And what did we make
Dell computer oxycodone maxi dresses
Water beds, the PT Cruiser
P90X, MK ULTRA, bitcoin, body rock, nation states
We could have had manta rays
But we wanted Boone’s Farm apple wine
I’m depressed
I’m depressed by mankind’s infinite reach

Desmayarse, atreverse, estar furioso,
áspero, tierno, liberal, esquivo,
alentado, mortal, difunto, vivo,
leal, traidor, cobarde y animoso;

no hallar fuera del bien centro y reposo,
mostrarse alegre, triste, humilde, altivo,
enojado, valiente, fugitivo,
satisfecho ofendido receloso;

huir el rostro al claro desengaño,
beber veneno por licor suave,
olvidar el provecho, amar el daño;

creer que el cielo en un infierno cabe,
dar la vida y el alma a un desengaño,
esto es amor: quien lo probó lo sabe.

No pudimos ser. La tierra
no pudo tanto. No somos
cuanto se propuso el sol
en un anhelo remoto.
Un pie se acerca a lo claro.
En lo oscuro insiste el otro.
Porque el amor no es perpetuo
en nadie, ni en mí tampoco.
El odio aguarda su instante
dentro del carbón más hondo.
Rojo es el odio y nutrido.

El amor, pálido y solo.

Cansado de odiar, te amo.
Cansado de amar, te odio.

Llueve tiempo, llueve tiempo.
Y un día triste entre todos,
triste por toda la tierra,
triste desde mí hasta el lobo,
dormimos y despertamos
con un tigre entre los ojos.

Piedras, hombres como piedras,
duros y plenos de encono,
chocan en el aire, donde
chocan las piedras de pronto.

Soledades que hoy rechazan
y ayer juntaban sus rostros.
Soledades que en el beso
guardan el rugido sordo.
Soledades para siempre.
Soledades sin apoyo.

Cuerpos como un mar voraz,
entrechocado, furioso.

Solitariamente atados
por el amor, por el odio.
Por las venas surgen hombres,
cruzan las ciudades, torvos.

En el corazón arraiga
solitariamente todo.
Huellas sin compaña quedan
como en el agua, en el fondo.

Solo una voz, a lo lejos,
siempre a lo lejos la oigo,
acompaña y hace ir
igual que el cuello a los hombros.

Solo una voz me arrebata
este armazón espinoso
de vello retrocedido
y erizado que me pongo.

Los secos vientos no pueden
secar los mares jugosos.
Y el corazón permanece
fresco en su cárcel de agosto
porque esa voz es el arma
más tierna de los arroyos:

«Miguel: me acuerdo de ti
después del sol y del polvo,
antes de la misma luna,
tumba de un sueño amoroso».

Amor: aleja mi ser
de sus primeros escombros,
y edificándome, dicta
una verdad como un soplo.

Después del amor, la tierra.
Después de la tierra, todo.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,— They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

        The flowers
            I wanted to bring you,
                wild and wet
                    from the pale dunes

        and still smelling
            of the summer night,
                and still holding a moment or two
                    of the night cricket's

        humble prayer,
            would have been
                so handsome
                    in your hands--

        so happy--I dare to say it--
            in your hands--
                yet your smile
                    would have been nowhere

        and maybe you would have tossed them
            onto the ground,
                or maybe, for tenderness,
                    you would have taken them

        into your house
            and given them water
                put them in a dark corner
                    out of reach.

         In matters of love
            of this kind
                there are things we long to do
                     but must not do.

        I would not want to see
            your smile diminished.
                And the flowers, anyway,
                    are happy just where they are,

        on the pale dunes,
            above the cricket's humble nest,
                under the blue sky
                    that loves us all.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed
or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

América, América!¡Todo por ella; porque nos vendrá de ella desdicha o bien!

Somos aún México, Venezuela, Chile, el azteca-español, el quechua-español, el araucano-español; pero seremos mañana, cuando la desgracia nos haga crujir entre su dura quijada, un solo dolor y no más que un anhelo.

Maestro: enseña en tu clase el sueño de Bolívar, el vidente primero. Clávalo en el alma de tus discípulos con agudo garfio de convencimiento. Divulga la América, su Bello, su Sarmiento, su Lastarria, su Martí. No seas un ebrio de Europa, un embriagado de lo lejano, por lejano extraño, y además caduco, de hermosa caduquez fatal.

Describe tu América. Haz amar la luminosa meseta mexicana, la verde estepa de Venezuela, la negra selva austral. Dilo todo de tu América; di cómo se canta en la pampa argentina, cómo se arranca la perla en el Caribe, cómo se puebla de blancos la Patagonia.

Periodista: Ten la justicia para tu América total. No desprestigies a Nicaragua, para exaltar a Cuba; ni a Cuba para exaltar la Argentina. Piensa en que llegará la hora en que seamos uno, y entonces tu siembra de desprecio o de sarcasmo te morderá en carne propia.

Artista: Muestra en tu obra la capacidad de finura, la capacidad de sutileza, de exquisitez y hondura a la par, que tenemos. Exprime a tu Lugones, a tu Valencia, a tu Darío y a tu Nervo: Cree en nuestra sensibilidad que puede vibrar como la otra, manar como la otra la gota cristalina y breve de la obra perfecta.

Industrial: Ayúdanos tú a vencer, o siquiera a detener la invasión que llaman inofensiva y que es fatal, de la América rubia que quiere vendérnoslo todo, poblarnos los campos y las ciudades de sus maquinarias, sus telas, hasta de lo que tenemos y no sabemos explotar. Instruye a tu obrero, instruye a tus químicos y a tus ingenieros. Industrial: tú deberías ser el jefe de esta cruzada que abandonas a los idealistas.

¿Odio al yankee? ¡No! Nos está venciendo, nos está arrollando por culpa nuestra, por nuestra languidez tórrida, por nuestro fatalismo indio. Nos está disgregando por obra de algunas de sus virtudes y de todos nuestros vicios raciales. ¿Por qué le odiaríamos? Que odiemos lo que en nosotros nos hace vulnerables a su clavo de acero y de oro: a su voluntad y a su opulencia.

Dirijamos toda la actividad como una flecha hacia este futuro ineludible: la América Española una, unificada por dos cosas estupendas: la lengua que le dio Dios y el Dolor que da el Norte.

Nosotros ensoberbecimos a ese Norte con nuestra inercia; nosotros estamos creando, con nuestra pereza, su opulencia; nosotros le estamos haciendo aparecer, con nuestros odios mezquinos, sereno y hasta justo.

Discutimos incansablemente, mientras él hace, ejecuta; nos despedazamos, mientras él se oprime, como una carne joven, se hace duro y formidable, suelda de vínculos sus estados de mar a mar; hablamos, alegamos, mientras él siembra, funde, asierra, labra, multiplica, forja; crea con fuego, tierra, aire, agua; crea minuto a minuto, educa en su propia fe y se hace por esa fe divino e invencible.

¡América y sólo América! ¡Qué embriaguez semejante futuro, qué hermosura, qué reinado vasto para la libertad y las excelencias mayores!

1922. Santiago de Chile

It is a dangerous thing to forget the climate of your birthplace, to choke out the voices of dead relatives when in dreams they call you by your secret name. It is dangerous to spurn the clothes you were born to wear for the sake of fashion; dangerous to use weapons and sharp instruments you are not familiar with; dangerous to disdain the plaster saints before which your mother kneels praying with embarrassing fervor that you survive in the place you have chosen to live: a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls, a forgetting place where she fears you will die of loneliness and exposure. Jesús, María, y José, she says, el olvido is a dangerous thing.

I have a bed, my very own.
It’s just my size.
And sometimes I like to sleep alone
with dreams inside my eyes.

But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy
and I wake and am afraid, though I don’t know why.
But I’m no longer sleepy
and too slowly the hours go by.

So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon
is shining on your face
and I know it will be morning soon.

Everybody needs a safe place.

And people are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don’t know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.

I do know that there is a release, the belated release. A justly or unjustly ruined reputation, poverty, disastrous circumstances, misfortune, they all turn you into a prisoner. You cannot always tell what keeps you confined, what immures you, what seems to bury you, and yet you can feel those elusive bars, railings, walls. Is all this illusion, imagination? I don’t think so. And then one asks: My God! will it be for long, will it be for ever, will it be for eternity?

Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.

Father, you always call to say nothing in particular. You ask what I’m doing or where I am and when the silence stretches like a lifetime between us I scramble to find questions to keep the conversation going. What I long to say most is. I understand this world broke you. It has been so hard on your feet. I don’t blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. Sometimes I stay up thinking of all the places you are hurting which you’ll never care to mention. I come from the same aching blood. From the same bone so desperate for attention. I collapse in on myself. I am your daughter. I know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. Cause it is the only way I know how to tell you.

225 days under grass and you know more than I. they have long taken your blood, you are a dry stick in a basket. is this how it works? in this room the hours of love still make shadows.

when you left you took almost everything. I kneel in the nights before tigers that will not let me be.

what you were will not happen again. the tigers have found me and I do not care.

Africa has always been treated more as an idea than a place. An idea of suffering and struggle. An idea of violence. An idea of cursed leadership. An idea of a great weakness that can easily be exploited and stripped of its assets.

But for many who lost their heritage in humanity’s most vile trade, a more romantic idea has endured: one of Africa as a faint dreamscape of liberation from worlds that regularly stutter when asked to affirm that their lives matter.

Para el que tiene un enorme agujero en el pecho y ama.
Polvoriento de humanidad, abrazo cortésmente
a un transeúnte. Le pido después perdón, le doy ex-
plicaciones, no vaya a sentirse ofendido. Me sacu-
do por último las manchas y poco a poco vuelvo a
casa agarrado a mis dos sombras, con las manos,
como siempre, vacías de respuestas.

The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomiants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

Al fin y al cabo, somos lo que hacemos para cambiar lo que somos. La identidad no es una pieza de museo, quietecita en la vitrina, sino la siempre asombrosa síntesis de las contradicciones nuestras de cada día.

Por algunas de esas cartas que conservo todavía, y por el recuerdo de los cientos y cientos de conversaciones que tuve con él, yo he llegado a darme cuenta de que no es que uno nazca bueno, sino que si alguien tolera y dirige nuestra innata mezquindad, es posible conducirla por cauces que no sean dañinos, o incluso cambiarle el sentido. No es que a uno le enseñen a vengarse (pues nacemos con sentimientos vengativos), sino que le enseñan a no vengarse. No es que a uno le enseñen a ser bueno, sino que le enseñan a no ser malo. Nunca me he sentido bueno, pero sí me he dado cuenta de que muchas veces, gracias a la benéfica influencia de mi papá, he podido ser un malo que no ejerce, un cobarde que se sobrepone con esfuerzo a su cobardía y un avaro que domina su avaricia. Y lo que es más importante, si hay algo de felicidad en mi vida, si tengo alguna madurez, si casi siempre me comporto de una manera decente y más o menos normal, si no soy un antisocial y he soportado atentados y penas y todavía sigo siendo pacífico, creo que fue simplemente porque mi papá me quiso tal como era, un atado amorfo de sentimientos buenos y malos, y me mostró el camino para sacar de esa mala índole humana que quizá todos compartimos, la mejor parte. Y aunque muchas veces no lo consiga, es por el recuerdo de él que casi siempre intento ser menos malo de lo que mis naturales inclinaciones me indican.

These are times when the fabric of society seems to unravel at ever-greater speed, when selfishness, violence, and a meanness of spirit seem to be rotting the goodness of our communal lives. Here the argument for the importance of emotional intelligence hinges on the link between sentiment, character, and moral instincts. There is growing evidence that fundamental ethical stances in life stem from underlying emotional capacities. For one, impulse is the medium of emotion; the seed of all impulse is a feeling bursting to express itself in action. Those who are at the mercy of impulse–who lack self-control–suffer a moral deficiency: The ability to control impulse is the base of will and character. By the same token, the root of altruism lies in empathy, the ability to read emotions in others; lacking a sense of another’s need or despair, there is no caring. And if there are any two moral stances that our times call for, they are precisely these, self-restraint and compassion.

In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s philosophical enquiry into virtue, character, and the good life, his challenge is to manage our emotional life with intelligence. Our passions, when well exercised, have wisdom; they guide our thinking, our values, our survival. But they can easily go awry, and do so all too often. As Aristotle saw, the problem is not with emotionality, but with the appropriateness of emotion and its expression. The question is, how can we bring intelligence to our emotions–and civility to our streets and caring to our communal life?

The beliefs of the rational mind are tentative; new evidence can disconfirm one belief and replace it with a new one—it reasons by objective evidence. The emotional mind, however, takes its beliefs to be absolutely true, and so discounts any evidence to the contrary. That is why it is so hard to reason with someone who is emotionally upset: no matter the soundness of your argument from a logical point of view, it carries no weight if it is out of keeping with the emotional conviction of the moment. Feelings are self-justifying, with a set of perceptions and “proofs” all their own.

The Past Imposed on the Present

When some feature of an event seems similar to an emotionally charged memory from the past, the emotional mind responds by triggering the feelings that went with the remembered event. The emotional mind reacts to the present as though it were the past.® The trouble is that, especially when the appraisal is fast and automatic, we may not realize that what was once the case is no longer so. Someone who has learned, through painful childhood beatings, to react to an angry scowl with intense fear and loathing will have that reaction to some degree even as an adult, when the scowl carries no such threat.

Dearest Father,

You asked me recently why I claim to be afraid of you. I did not know, as usual, how to answer, partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, partly because an explanation of my fear would require more details than I could even begin to make coherent in speech. And if I now try to answer in writing it will still be nowhere near complete, because even in writing
my fear and its consequences raise a barrier between us and because the magnitude of material far exceeds my memory and my understanding…

¿Qué demonios importa si uno es culto, está al día o ha leído todos los libros? Lo que importa es cómo se anda, cómo se ve, cómo se actúa, después de leer. Si la calle y las nubes y la existencia de los otros tienen algo que decirnos. Si leer nos hace, físicamente, más reales.

Estoy cansada de no saber donde morirme. Esa es a mayor tristeza del emigrado. ¿Qué tenemos nosotros que ver con los cementerios de los países donde vivimos? Habría que hacer tantas presentaciones de los otros muertos, que no acabaríamos nunca. Estoy cansada de hilarme hacia la muerte. Y sin embargo, ¿Tenemos derecho a morir sin concluir la historia que empezamos? ¿Cuántas veces hemos repetido las mismas palabras, aceptando la esperanza, llamándola, suplicándola para que no nos abandonase?

Porque todos los desterrados de España tenemos los ojos abiertos a los sueños. León Felipe aseguró que nos habíamos llevado la canción en los labios secos y fruncidos, callados y tristes. Yo creo que nos hemos llevado la ley que hace al hombre vivir en común, la ley de la vida diaria, hermosa verdad transitoria. Nos la llevamos sin saberlo, prendida en los trajes, en los hombros, entre los dedos de las manos … Somos hombres y mujeres obedientes a otra ley a a otra justicia que nada tenemos que ver con lo que vino y se enseñoreó de nuestro solar, de nuestros ríos, de nuestra tierra, de nuestras ciudades. No se si se dan cuenta los que quedaron por allá, o nacieron después, de quienes somos los desterrados de España. Nosotros somos ellos, lo que ellos serán cuando se restablezca la verdad de la libertad. Nosotros somos la aurora que están esperando.

Un día se asombrarán de que lleguemos, de que regresemos con nuestras ideas altas como palmas para el domingo de los ramos alegres. Nosotros, los del paraíso perdido.

¿No comprendéis? Nosotros somos aquellos que miraron sus pensamientos uno por uno durante treinta años. Durante treinta años suspiramos por nuestro paraíso perdido, un paraíso nuestro, único, especial. Un paraíso de casas rotas y techos desplomados. Un paraíso de calles deshechas, de muertos sin enterrar. Un paraíso de muros derruidos, de torres caídas y campos devastados. Un paraísos donde quedó la muchacha, el muchacho, la sonrisa, la canción, la flor, el amor, la juventud, los ojos, los labios tensos para besar, la mano amiga en la mano, los dedos entre el pelo, la gracia, la palabra, la camaradería, la promesa, el gesto, el aliento, todo, todo, todo … Nada tenemos que ver nosotros con las imágenes que nos muestran de España ni el cuento nuevo que nos cuentan. Podéis quedaros con todo lo que pusisteis encima. Nosotros somos los desterrados de España, los que buscamos la sombra, la silueta, el ruido de los pasos del silencio, las voces perdidas. Nuestro paraíso no es de árboles ni de flores permanentemente coloreadas. Dejadnos las ruinas. Debemos comenzar desde las ruinas. Llegaremos. Regresaremos con la ley, os enseñaremos las palabras enterradas bajos los edificios demasiado grandes de las cuidades que ya no son las nuestras. Nuestro paraíso, el que defendimos, está debajo de las apariencias actuales. También es el vuestro. ¿No sentís, jóvenes sin éxodo y sin llanto, que tenemos que partir de las ruinas, de las casas volcadas y los campos ardiendo para levantar nuestra cuidad fraternal de la nueva ley?

However, even “boredom” has its aura of mystery and is imbued with a singular pathos by Nietzsche. Boredom, from which art provides a refuge, becomes terrifying—the yawning abyss of being. When people are bored, they regard the moment as an empty passage of time. External events, as well as people’s sense of self, become inconsequential. The phases of life lose their intentional tension and cave in on themselves like a soufflé removed from the oven too soon. Routines and habits that otherwise provide stability suddenly prove to be nothing more than façades. Finally, the eerie scenario of boredom reveals a moment of true feeling. When people find nothing to do with themselves, nothingness besets them. Against this backdrop of nothingness, art performs its task of self-stimulation—a virtually heroic enterprise, because people on the verge of a breakdown need to be entertained. Art steps in as a bridge to prevent succumbing to nihilist ennui. Art helps us live; without it, life cannot stem the onslaught of meaninglessness.

There are two kinds of learning, from the inside and from the outside. The fist is regarded as the best, or even the only kind. And so people learn through distant journeys, watching, reading, universities and lectures — they learn from what is happening outside them. Man is a stupid creature who had to learn. So he tacks knowledge onto himself, he gathers it like a bee, gaining more and more of it, putting it to use and processing it. But the thing inside that is “stupid” and needs learning doesn’t change.

Cornspike learned by absorbing things from the outside to the inside.

Knowledge that is only grown on the outside changes nothing inside a man, or merely changes him on the surface, as one garment is changed for another. But he who learns by taking things inside himself undergoes constant transformation, because he incorporates what he learns into his being.

So by taking the stinking, dirty peasants from Primeval and the district into herself, Cornspike became just like them, was drunk just like them, frightened by the war just like them, and aroused just like them. What’s more, by taking them into herself in the bushes behind the inn, Cornspike also took in their wives, their children, and their stuffy, stinking wooden cottages around Maybug Hill. In a way she took the entire village into herself, every pain in the village, and every hope.

To Léon Werth.

I hope children will forgive me if I dedicate this book to a grown-up. I have a serious excuse: this grown-up is the best friend I have in the world. I have another excuse: this grown-up understands everything, even books for children. I have a third excuse: this grown-up lives in France, where he is cold and hungry. He really needs consoling. If all these excuses aren’t enough, I’m happy to dedicate this book to the child whom this grown-up used to be. All grown-ups started out as children. (But few of them remember it.) So I correct my dedication:

To Léon Werth
when he was a little boy.

There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

The native is always on the alert, for since he can only make out with difficulty the many symbols of the colonial world, he is never sure whether or not he has crossed the frontier. Confronted with a world ruled by the settler, the native is always presumed guilty. But the native’s guilt is never a guilt which he accepts; it is rather a kind of curse, a sort of sword of Damocles, for, in his innermost spirit, the native admits no accusation. He is overpowered but not tamed; he is treated as an inferior but he is not convinced of his inferiority. He is patiently waiting until the settler is off his guard to fly at him. The native’s muscles are always tensed. You can’t say that he is terrorized, or even apprehensive. He is in fact ready at a moment’s notice to exchange the role of the quarry for that of the hunter. The native is an oppressed person whose permanent dream is to become the persecutor. The symbols of social order—the police, the bugle-calls in the barracks, military parades and the waving flags—are at one and the same time inhibitory and stimulating: for they do not convey the message ‘Don’t dare to budge’; rather, they cry out ‘Get ready to attack.’ And, in fact, if the native had any tendency to fall asleep and to forget, the settler’s hauteur and the settler’s anxiety to test the strength of the colonial system would remind him at every turn that the great show-down cannot be put off indefinitely. That impulse to take the settler’s place implies a tonicity of muscles the whole time; and in fact we know that in certain emotional conditions the presence of an obstacle accentuates the tendency towards motion.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Cómo van a verme buena si me truena la vida en las venas. ¡Si toda canción se me enreda como una llamarada! y vengo sin Dios y sin miedo…

¡Si tengo sangre insubordinada! Y no puedo mostrarme dócil como una criada, mientras tenga un recuerdo de horizonte, un retazo de cielo y una cresta de monte!

Ni tú, ni el cielo ni nada podrán con mi grito indomable.

---

How will they see me as good When life in my veins Thunders When every song Tangles up like a sudden blaze And I come without God And without fear…

When I have insubordinate blood And I can’t pretend to be Docile like a servant, While I have a memory of a horizon, a remnant of sky, and a crest of weeds!

Neither you nor the sky Nothing Will stand my indomitable scream.

I

Pertenezco a este pedazo de la tierra. Reconozco como míos el aire que fue de mi infancia, los relatos de mis padres jóvenes y eternos, cuanto su vista levantó de estos valles donde abreva el deseo.

II

Yo soy aquella en la fotografía, de pie, entre el miedo y el deslumbramiento. Le he sido fiel a su memoria a cuanto sus ojos recuerdan de aquel cielo, al lomo de los caballos relucientes. Pero vuelve el recuerdo de aquella ocasión en que quise sustraerme, y no hallé lugar que me resguardara de mis despóticos fantasmas coloniales. Así me hundo en esa putrefacción cálida, Mientras manos que son de nadie me arrancan de cuerpo.

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.

I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let’s be honest, I like that they’re ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it’s going to come in first.

Translated from the Spanish by Jesse Lee Kercheval

I didn’t know it had rained, and suddenly, stepping out into the street, I found water on the leaves and the asphalt wet and shining. The paving stones washed clean and white and the air light and so very clear. Did no one see it fall? Did no one see it?

No sabía

No sabía que había llovido y de pronto, al salir a la calle me encontré con el agua en las hojas y el asfalto mojado y brillante. Las baldosas lavadas y blancas y liviano y clarísimo el aire. ¿Nadie la vio caer? ¿No la vio nadie?

I don’t want to lose a single thread

from the intricate brocade of this happiness.

I want to remember everything.

Which is why I’m lying awake, sleepy

but not sleepy enough to give it up.

Just now, a moment from years ago;

the early morning light, the deft, sweet

gesture of your hand

reaching for me.

I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
        oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
        themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
        neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer
        of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
        hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
        prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
        shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
        laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
        out upon,
See, hear, and am silent

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

by Mary Oliver

If strangers meet

life begins-

not poor not rich

(only aware)

kind neither

nor cruel

(only complete)

i not not you

not possible;

only truthful

-truthfully, once

if strangers(who

deep our most are

selves)touch:

forever

Do not stand

By my grave, and weep.

I am not there,

I do not sleep—

I am the thousand winds that blow am the diamond glints in snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning’s hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight,

I am the day transcending night.

Do not stand

By my grave, and cry—

I am not there,

I did not die.

“Because the grief knot is known to slip apart ‘with astonishing ease,’ it is considered one of the most insecure of knots.” —Wikipedia, “Grief Knot”

I not-see houses at the not-edge of the trees. Nothing gnaws through brush: no football deflated, no crumpled seltzer cans. Possums emerge and are not-run over. This yard is a certified wildlife habitat. These yards Make America Laugh Again. Go Blue. From the top of a parking garage, I face the endless not-anything. It is almost-green as I know it not-here. A golf course is not a rash, not a sore, not a scab. It’s not so bad. A not-lover tells me these are Midwest Clouds after we drive under the same frothy white for hours. There is not-not-ocean on the other side of the road. Listen. I came from not-here. I know better than to fault the land. ‘Āina has not-not-synonyms. There is no water I can look at or not-look at and not-think of poison. Ground plumes. Oil spills. The not- government not-warns of PFAs. Not-alarms at white foam. I am not-embering with my not-anger. In this corner of not-Michigan, There is no public access to tracts of forest, wetlands, shorelines. These are not unprecedented times. What not-new not-apologies will we hear in one hundred years? Who will not make them? I am not-not-exhausted afterwalking twelve miles in not-woods open to not-scientists like me. There are no switchbacks. With every step, I not- remember no mountains. No hemlocks. No cedars. No spruces. No dwarf rose. No roses. No roses. Nō. My mother taught me to shake branches like hands, to know pines by their follicles. Without her, I not-name plants with not-names for other plants. How much to not-remember! Mother not-not-is a metonym. When I not-sleep, I not-hear the train not-wailing. I am not too far from her.

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Consejos

Sabe esperar, aguarda que la marea fluya
—así en la costa un barco-, sin que el partir te inquiete.
Todo el que aguarda sabe que la victoria es suya;
porque la vida es larga y el arte es un juguete.
Y si la vida es corta
y no llega la mar a tu galera,
aguarda sin partir y siempre espera,
que el arte es largo y, además, no importa.

Jazz is my religion   and it alone do I dig   the jazz clubs are my house of worship   and sometimes the concert halls   but some holy places are too commercial (like churches)   so I don’t dig the sermons there   I buy jazz sides to dig in solitude   Like man / Harlem, Harlem USA Used to be a jazz heaven where most of the jazz sermons were preached   but now-a-days due to chacha cha and rotten rock’n’roll alotta good jazzmen have sold their souls   but jazz is still my religion   because I know and feel the message it brings like Reverend Dizzy Gillespie / Brother Bird and Basie / Uncle Armstrong / Minister Monk / Deacon Miles Davis / Rector Rollins / Priest Ellington / His Funkness Horace Silver /   and the great John coltrane   and Cecil Taylor   They Preach A Sermon That Always Swings!!   Yeah jazz is my religion   Jazz is my story it was my mom’s and pop’s   and their moms and pops from the days of Buddy Bolden who swung them blues to Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman’s extension of Bebop   Yeah jazz is my religion Jazz is a unique musical religion the sermons spread happiness and joy   to be able to dig and swing inside   what a wonderful feeling jazz is / yeah boy!!   jazz is my religion and dig this: it wasn’t for us to choose because they created it for a damn good reason   as   a weapon to battle our blues!   jazz is my religion   and its international   all the way   jazz is just an Afroamerican music and like us it’s here to stay   So remember that jazz is my religion but it can be your religion too but jazz is a truth that   is always black and blue   Halleluiah I love jazz so   Halleluiah I dig jazz so Yeah  jazz   is   my   religion

There is joy in the woods just now, The leaves are whispers of song, And the birds make mirth on the bough And music the whole day long, And God! to dwell in the town In these springlike summer days, On my brow an unfading frown And hate in my heart always—

A machine out of gear, aye, tired, Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired.

Just forced to go on through fear, For every day I must eat And find ugly clothes to wear, And bad shoes to hurt my feet And a shelter for work-drugged sleep! A mere drudge! but what can one do? A man that’s a man cannot weep! Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no!

But a slave should never grow tired, Whom the masters have kindly hired.

But oh! for the woods, the flowers Of natural, sweet perfume, The heartening, summer showers And the smiling shrubs in bloom, Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn, The fresh and life-giving air, The billowing waves of corn And the birds’ notes rich and clear:—

For a man-machine toil-tired May crave beauty too—though he’s hired.

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡ya te vas para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro
y a veces lloro sin querer

Plural ha sido la celeste
historia de mi corazón.
Era una dulce niña,
en este mundo de duelo y de aflicción.

Miraba como el alba pura;
sonreía como una flor.
Era su cabellera obscura
hecha de noche y de dolor.

Yo era tímido como un niño.
Ella, naturalmente, fue,
para mi amor hecho de armiño,
Herodías y Salomé…

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡ya te vas para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro…
y a veces lloro sin querer…

Y más consoladora y más
halagadora y expresiva,
la otra fue más sensitiva
cual no pensé encontrar jamás.

Pues a su continua ternura
una pasión violenta unía.
En un peplo de gasa pura
una bacante se envolvía…

En sus brazos tomó mi ensueño
y lo arrulló como a un bebé…
Y te mató, triste y pequeño,
falto de luz, falto de fe…

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡te fuiste para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro…
y a veces lloro sin querer…

Otra juzgó que era mi boca
el estuche de su pasión;
y que me roería, loca,
con sus dientes el corazón.

Poniendo en un amor de exceso
la mira de su voluntad,
mientras eran abrazo y beso
síntesis de la eternidad;

y de nuestra carne ligera
imaginar siempre un Edén,
sin pensar que la Primavera
y la carne acaban también…

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡ya te vas para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro…
y a veces lloro sin querer.

¡Y las demás! En tantos
climas, en tantas tierras siempre son,
si no pretextos de mis rimas
fantasmas de mi corazón.

En vano busqué a la princesa
que estaba triste de esperar.
La vida es dura. Amarga y pesa.
¡Ya no hay princesa que cantar!

Mas a pesar del tiempo
terco, mi sed de amor no tiene fin;
con el cabello gris, me acerco a los
rosales del jardín…

Juventud, divino tesoro,
¡ya te vas para no volver!
Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro…
y a veces lloro sin querer…
¡Mas es mía el Alba de oro!

Sí; soy partidario resuelto y entusiasta de esta máquina, que hoy rueda triunfante por todo el mundo civilizado.

No lo digo en tono de humorismo, sino con profundo convencimiento y con toda la seriedad de que soy capaz.

Y soy partidario de la bicicleta, porque lo soy de toda invención en que el ingenio humano triunfa de los obstáculos naturales, abriendo nuevos horizontes al progreso.

Parece, á primera vista, que la bicicleta es un juego de niños, un nuevo sport, un capricho más de la moda. Y sin embargo, aun siendo esto, es mucho más; es, por lo pronto, un triunfo de la ciencia; un sistema de locomoción individualista como ninguno; un medio de salvar el espacio, comparable al de los trenes de las vías férreas; una economía de fuerzas verdaderamente admirable.

Y todavía será más: será el caballo de acero de toda la clase media, de los que no podemos tener ni coche de lujo, ni constantemente coche de alquiler, ni caballo de montar, ni cocheros y lacayos por añadidura.

Y será más todavía: será un desahogo, un reposo, una economía para toda la clase obrera, cuando, á medida que el tiempo pase, se abarate la bicicleta.

El obrero no necesitará vivir en el casco de la población, en cuchitriles antihigiénicos y antiestéticos: podrá vivir á una legua, á dos leguas de la población, porque para un hombre vigoroso una legua de camino en bicicleta representa veinte minutos, y ninguna fatiga.

En las horas de descanso no necesitará meterse á comer en un tabernucho, que hasta podrá ir á comer con su familia.

La bicicleta ensancha, pues, la esfera de acción de las poblaciones aumentando su diámetro nada menos que tres ó cuatro leguas. Para el obrero representa la vida cómoda, la vida sana, la vida económica, y hasta la vida higiénica. No se verá obligado á pasar, de la fábrica llena del humo de carbón y de los ruidos del trabajo, á la buhardilla ó al cuarto interior que da sobre patios inmundos y mal olientes, entre gases mefíticos y ruidos de vecindad. Saldrá al campo, al aire libre, á la atmósfera oxigenada, á los horizontes anchos, con mantos de verdura y círculos encendidos de celajes, ó, por lo menos, á las anchuras del espacio y no á las retorcidas estrecheces de la calleja. De suerte, que la bicicleta, ese aparatillo que empezó por juguete de niños, en sus neumáticos, en sus alambres y en sus tubos de acero lleva elementos auxiliares nada menos que para el problema social.

Pueden reírse, aquellos que de todo se ríen, porque no saben hacer otra cosa, de esta modernísima invención, que yo por mi parte admiro y no río.

Yo no aconsejo. Colecciono sellos. Para dar consejos, es necesario estar completamente seguro de que los consejos son buenos y, para eso, es necesario estar seguro (de lo que nadie en absoluto lo está) de estar en posesión de la verdad. Y luego es necesario saber si esos consejos se adaptan al individuo al que se le dan, para lo cual es necesario conocer toda su alma, lo que casi nunca es posible. Y también hay que tener en cuenta que el modo de dar consejos debe adaptarse exactamente a aquella alma; se aconsejan a veces cosas que no quieren que se hagan para que, combinadas con elementos del alma aconsejada, se obtenga el resultado que se desea. Solo la gente muy ingenua da consejos.

No sé si lo he dicho:
mi madre es pequeña
y tiene que ponerse de puntillas
para besarme.
Hace años yo me empinaba,
supongo, para robarle un beso.
Nos hemos pasado la vida
estirándonos y agachándonos
para buscar la medida exacta
donde podemos querernos.

Lo que eres
me distrae de lo que dices.

Lanzas palabras veloces,
empavesadas de risas,
invitándome
a ir adonde ellas me lleven.
No te atiendo, no las sigo:
estoy mirando
los labios donde nacieron.

Miras de pronto a los lejos.
Clavas la mirada allí,
no sé en qué, y se te dispara
a buscarlo ya tu alma
afilada, de saeta.
Yo no miro adonde miras:
yo te estoy viendo mirar.

Y cuando deseas algo
no pienso en lo que tú quieres,
ni lo envidio: es lo de menos.
Lo quieres hoy, lo deseas;
mañana lo olvidarás
por una querencia nueva.
No. Te espero más allá
de los fines y los términos.

En lo que no ha de pasar
me quedo, en el puro acto
de tu deseo, queriéndote.
Y no quiero ya otra cosa
más que verte a ti querer.

Hay una línea de Verlaine que no volveré a recordar.
Hay una calle próxima que está vedada a mis pasos,
hay un espejo que me ha visto por última vez,
hay una puerta que he cerrado hasta el fin del mundo.
Entre los libros de mi biblioteca (estoy viéndolos)
hay alguno que ya nunca abriré.
Este verano cumpliré cincuenta años;
La muerte me desgasta, incesante.

hoy llueve mucho, mucho,
y pareciera que están lavando el mundo
mi vecino de al lado mira la lluvia
y piensa escribir una carta de amor/
una carta a la mujer que vive con él
y le cocina y le lava la ropa y hace el amor con él
y se parece a su sombra/
mi vecino nunca le dice palabras de amor a la
mujer/
entra a la casa por la ventana y no por la puerta/
por una puerta se entra a muchos sitios/
al trabajo, al cuartel, a la cárcel,
a todos los edificios del mundo/ pero no al mundo/
ni a una mujer/ni al alma/
es decir/a ese cajón o nave o lluvia que llamamos así/
como hoy/que llueve mucho/
y me cuesta escribir la palabra amor/
porque el amor es una cosa y la palabra amor es otra cosa/
y sólo el alma sabe dónde las dos se encuentran/
y cuándo/y cómo/
pero el alma qué puede explicar/
por eso mi vecino tiene tormentas en la boca/
palabras que naufragan/
palabras que no saben que hay sol porque nacen y
mueren la misma noche en que amó/
y dejan cartas en el pensamiento que él nunca
escribirá/
como el silencio que hay entre dos rosas/
o como yo/que escribo palabras para volver
a mi vecino que mira la lluvia/
a la lluvia/
a mi corazón desterrado/

Seres humanos cuya mirada me limpia. Se caracterizan por desprender un olor afectuoso. El afecto les confiere una nitidez especial que los precede y los sigue. Dicha nitidez aclara también sus flancos, su nombre, sus palabras, y me acompaña cuando ellos ya no están.

Son lo contrario de la roca dura. Son el envés del espino. Son lo opuesto del metal cortante.

Me complace pensar en ellos como en esponjas con forma humana donde uno es acogido y envuelto blandamente. Sus adjetivos brotan llanos, sin púas, de la sonrisa. No se alimentan de las espaldas de los ausentes.

Llega de pronto uno. Abarco su volumen cordial entre los brazos. Me incluye entre los suyos. Pecho con pecho, en su aceptación, en la cercanía que me concede, borro mis nubes interiores. De paso les impongo un amanecer a mis noches diurnas, mientras disuelvo gustosamente en la alegría mis pequeñas y defectuosas dimensiones fraternales.

Apenas entablamos conversación, el lenguaje, cachorro alborozado, se arranca a retozar en torno nuestro. Partimos, como si fuera pan, en dos la luz del día. Yo lo invito a un pájaro. Él me invita al temblor de una rama. Le pregunto por el mar, al que va para largo tiempo que no veo. Me pide que transmita recuerdos a la nieve, de quien se acuerda con nostalgia.

Luego de habernos despedido, me doy la vuelta para verlo marchar. Compruebo entonces que la mitad de mí se va con él, que la mitad de él está conmigo.

Llegan
y se van sin hacer ruido
—como buenos
clientes—,
luego el tiempo los confunde
en la memoria,
y ya ni sabes
si aquel lunes era jueves
o al revés.

Que no te engañen,
no son tan poca cosa
como parecen:

suelen poder
con el amor.

No los domésticos,
estratégicamente dispuestos
para que te digan siempre
lo que quieres oír,

sino los otros,
los que no tienen dueño,
los de los bares,
los de los comercios,
los de los vestíbulos de hotel,

esos son los que te dicen la verdad:
que no eres nada, nadie,
en realidad,

sólo uno más
que pasaba por allí.

Un hombre que cultiva un jardín, como quería Voltaire.
El que agradece que en la tierra haya música.
El que descubre con placer una etimología.
Dos empleados que en un café del Sur juegan un silencioso ajedrez.
El ceramista que premedita un color y una forma.
Un tipógrafo que compone bien esta página, que tal vez no le agrada
Una mujer y un hombre que leen los tercetos finales de cierto canto.
El que acaricia a un animal dormido.
El que justifica o quiere justificar un mal que le han hecho.
El que agradece que en la tierra haya Stevenson.
El que prefiere que los otros tengan razón.
Esas personas, que se ignoran, están salvando el mundo.

Todas las divisiones son mentira
salvo la que divide los cuerpos en dos
grupos incomprensibles entre sí.
Aquellos que se han roto y los que no.

Los rotos no pedimos demasiado:
que se nos quiera, sí,
que los que no han vivido la fractura
tengan paciencia
si mascullamos viendo las noticias
o hacemos el amor
con un poco de miedo.

Entenderás, entonces, ciertas cosas.
Por qué en casa las tazas no se tiran
y por qué a veces quiero
estar solo después de que suene un portazo.
Los ritos de los rotos, amor mío.
Ademanes que espero que no comprendas nunca.

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday  Out of his grave rose up before my face,  No recognition in his look, no trace Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey. While I, remembering, found no word to say,  But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;  Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days, Caught echoes of all music passed away. Was this indeed to meet?—I mind me yet  In youth we met when hope and love were quick,    We parted with hope dead, but love alive:  I mind me how we parted then heart sick,    Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive:— Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

El que espera y olvida
siempre goza la luz
porque el olvido es blanco
y se pierde en el mar
y la esperanza es blanca
y se pierde en el cielo.

El que recuerda y teme
siempre vive en la noche
porque el recuerdo es negro
y se clava en la tierra,
porque el temor es negro
y se pierde en el bosque.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

A friend was beaten by his father
and mother, more and harder
by his father, so at times
he took refuge with his mother,
who was also beaten by his father,
and all of them, even my friend,
beat their dog, he admitted
while petting mine and explaining
why he’ll never have kids,
only goldfish, on the deck
with beer and sunshine, crows
and a monster truck revving
next door, on the other side
of some junipers and a universe
away from my friend’s quiet hands,
hands he soaks in honey
to keep them sweet, not even
a bird or cat, nothing
that might inspire a fist, fists
were your real parents,
I started to tell him,
but wondered why
I hadn’t lifted him by then
and cradled him in my arms
backward through time
and tucked him in
to being four and loved,
which is all a friend
can never do

To wake when all is possible
before the agitations of the day
have gripped you
To come to the kitchen
and peel a little basketball
for breakfast
To tear the husk
like cotton padding        a cloud of oil
misting out of its pinprick pores
clean and sharp as pepper
To ease
each pale pink section out of its case
so carefully       without breaking
a single pearly cell
To slide each piece
into a cold blue china bowl
the juice pooling       until the whole
fruit is divided from its skin
and only then to eat
so sweet
a discipline
precisely pointless       a devout
involvement of the hands and senses
a pause     a little emptiness

each year harder to live within
each year harder to live without

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder. Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum. The cat stretching her black body from the pillow. The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture. Then laps the bowl clean. Then wants to go out into the world where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn, then sits, perfectly still, in the grass. I watch her a little while, thinking: what more could I do with wild words? I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her. I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

Nada por más me arrancará de mi sitio. Igual fulgor me escupió de muerte cuando reía mi madre y todos. La paz es un minuto. Cierro las ventanas, las puertas antiguas de mi casa. Es un minuto. Tú, ellos, de las palabras, de los labios a las palabras recias. Lento, prolongado, insistente. No alcanzo más que golpear. En este sitio. La palabra a golpes desprendida. Volcada de revés. La calma es un minuto.

Nada te turbe,
nada te espante,
todo se pasa,
Dios no se muda,
la paciencia
todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
¡Sólo Dios basta!

I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear,
That death has silenced long ago;
And hope and rapture may appear
Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain
The form it was my bliss to see;
And only dreams can bring again,
The darling of my heart to me.

Definitivamente
parece confirmarse que este invierno
que viene, será duro.

Adelantaron
las lluvias, y el Gobierno,
reunido en consejo de ministros,
no se sabe si estudia a estas horas
el subsidio de paro
o el derecho al despido,
o si sencillamente, aislado en un océano,
se limita a esperar que la tormenta pase
y llegue el día, el día en que, por fin,
las cosas dejen de venir mal dadas.

En la noche de octubre,
mientras leo entre líneas el periódico,
me he parado a escuchar el latido
del silencio en mi cuarto, las conversaciones
de los vecinos acostándose,
todos esos rumores
que recobran de pronto una vida
y un significado propio, misterioso.

Y he pensado en los miles de seres humanos,
hombres y mujeres que en este mismo instante,
con el primer escalofrío,
han vuelto a preguntarse por sus preocupaciones,
por su fatiga anticipada,
por su ansiedad para este invierno,

mientras que afuera llueve.
Por todo el litoral de Cataluña llueve
con verdadera crueldad, con humo y nubes bajas,
ennegreciendo muros,
goteando fábricas, filtrándose
en los talleres mal iluminados.
Y el agua arrastra hacia la mar semillas
incipientes, mezcladas en el barro,
árboles, zapatos cojos, utensilios
abandonados y revuelto todo
con las primeras Letras protestadas.

I am fine and of course I am lying remember I am Lebanese

or nod ask how everyone I know is doing don’t

you see that far away country my mother

bursts into tears the front door resilient

smoke dust the rubble has become

blanket and bed warm like mine the fire

is blazing the flag burnt flesh on a phone screen

the demolition of war what is the definition

fleeing their homes they are dying

they are not crying out for help lend a

hand hold a heart

for being arab I am not brave

O sport é a revelação do corpo humano na sua imitação da alma na ambição de conquistar. O corpo conquista o que a alma deseja: isso é o amor; a alma conquista o que o corpo deseja, isso é o outro amor. Mas no sport o corpo conquista o que a alma conquista; vão juntos na dinâmica.

When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think | need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.

Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!

Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!

When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,

| will only ask one favor:

Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling,
Don’t study and get it wrong.

‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy

And every goodbye ain’t gone.

I’m the same person | was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,

A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.

¿También nos engañamos con respecto a los recuerdos de nuestra propia vida?

Sí. Son datos que están ya demostrados científicamente. Cuando almacenamos algo en la memoria a largo plazo, la manera para recordar es extraer este recuerdo de la memoria a largo plazo y ponerlo al frente del almacenamiento a corto plazo. ¿Qué ocurre? Que cuando extraemos este recuerdo y lo situamos ahí, de repente se vuelve versátil. El propio hecho de acceder a ese recuerdo hace que lo cambies. Es decir, cuando recuerdas una vivencia que te ha ocurrido y te pones a meditar sobre ella o te pones a revivirla, cuando después la vuelves a guardar en el almacenamiento a largo plazo no es exactamente la misma.

La retocas siempre que la recuperas.

Siempre la retocas, aunque sea de una manera mínima. Pienso que es un poco triste en cierto sentido, porque quizá aquellas vivencias que pensamos que son más significativas para nosotros, que nos definen como personas a lo largo de los años, que son las experiencias que recordamos una y otra vez, seguramente serán muy distintas de las experiencias originales por el hecho de estarlas recordando tanto.

It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That’s why you should always have a nutrition choice!

Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.

Those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk, they are not helping us. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizers, insecticides, watering cans, drills and dams. That is how we would define food aid.

And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking. And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl-fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea-beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

A desert of weed and water-darkened stone under my western windows The ebb lasted all afternoon, And many pieces of humanity, men, women, and children, gathering shellfish, Swarmed with voices of gulls the sea-breach. At twilight they went off together, the verge was left vacant, an evening heron Bent broad wings over the black ebb, And left me wondering why a lone bird was dearer to me than many people. Well: rare is dear: but also I suppose Well reconciled with the world but not with our own natures we grudge to see them Reflected on the world for a mirror.

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can’t see. I say, It’s in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman

Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It’s in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, ’Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Poe’s four conditions for happiness:

Life in the open air
Love of another human being.
Freedom from all ambition.
Creation.

From The Domain of Arnheim by Edgar Allan Poe, 1847

He admitted but four elementary principles, or more strictly, conditions of bliss. That which he considered chief was (strange to say!) the simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the open air. “The health,” he said, “attainable by other means is scarcely worth the name.” He instanced the ecstasies of the fox-hunter and pointed to the tillers of the earth, the only people who, as a class, can be fairly considered happier than others. His second condition was the love of a woman. His third, and most difficult of realization, was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held that, other things being equal, the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the spirituality of this object.

Las leyes son para que las cumplan
los pobres.
Las leyes son hechas por los ricos
para poner un poco de orden a la explotación.
Los pobres son los únicos cumplidores de leyes de la historia.
Cuando los pobres hagan las leyes
ya no habrá ricos.

Septiembre de 2000

Queridísima Susi,

Alguna vez tenía que ser. Esto no hay quien lo evite. Sólo por una razón me entristece la muerte: porque ya no voy a volver a verte. Eres la persona que más quiero en este mundo: también la más honesta, la más íntegra, la más buena: la mejor.

Gracias por toda la felicidad que me diste. Recuerda tú los momentos de felicidad que vivimos juntos y que esos recuerdos te sirvan de ayuda en esos momentos tristes. No te dejes dominar por la tristeza. Trata de ser feliz y de que sobreviva en ti siempre ese maravilloso espíritu de alegría que tuviste siempre. No pierdas nunca esa maravillosa sonrisa que iluminaba el mundo. Hazlo por el amor que sentí -que siento todavía cuando escribo ahora- por ti.

Con ese inmenso amor pienso y pensaré siempre en ti.

Un beso muy largo, interminable,

Ángel

We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable— But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry; And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear, From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere; And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold, And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry, We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head, And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears, And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

One white, one red, one black
Three horses are drinking at the riverbank

They drink at their own pace, some up
Some down
Sometimes their heads reach the river

At the same time

As if a river were flowing
Out of their mouths

As their minds flow from the river source
Still innocent, clear, undisturbed

The sun is setting slowly
A man watches, without blinking

How a river disappears into the night
Held in the mouths of three horses

Es imposible el silencio en este siglo. No tiene cómo darse. Es que tanto ruge. Imparable ronronea la bestia que somos la que hemos aprendido.

Será posible entonces ausentarse del bullicio. Hacer nido en la pausa o encontrar resguardo que acurruque la ansiedad de sabernos morir

tan pequeños tan importantes entre tanto ruido.

I wanted to go to the qabarstan with a sandwich and have a picnic.

How people do.

Instead of just going and saying prayers.

But it rained hard and I had to run for the car.

Why do people run for the car? What do we think is going to happen?

It is not as if we are going to die.

We are all going to die.

When I go to the qabarstan I always lose my place and can’t find the grave.

For the briefest of uncanny moments it feels like you are not dead.

You are not dead.

Quiero que sepas
una cosa.

Tú sabes cómo es esto:
si miro
la luna de cristal, la rama roja
del lento otoño en mi ventana,
si toco
junto al fuego
la impalpable ceniza
o el arrugado cuerpo de la leña,
todo me lleva a ti,
como si todo lo que existe,
aromas, luz, metales,
fueran pequeños barcos que navegan
hacia las islas tuyas que me aguardan.

Ahora bien,
si poco a poco dejas de quererme
dejaré de quererte poco a poco.

Si de pronto
me olvidas
no me busques,
que ya te habré olvidado.

Si consideras largo y loco
el viento de banderas
que pasa por mi vida
y te decides
a dejarme a la orilla
del corazón en que tengo raíces,
piensa
que en ese día,
a esa hora
levantaré los brazos
y saldrán mis raíces
a buscar otra tierra.

Pero
si cada día,
cada hora
sientes que a mí estás destinada
con dulzura implacable.
Si cada día sube
una flor a tus labios a buscarme,
ay amor mío, ay mía,
en mí todo ese fuego se repite,
en mí nada se apaga ni se olvida,
mi amor se nutre de tu amor, amada,
y mientras vivas estará en tus brazos
sin salir de los míos.

Cuando tú te quedes muda,
cuando yo me quede ciego,
nos quedarán las manos
y el silencio.

Cuando tú te pongas vieja,
cuando yo me ponga viejo,
nos quedarán los labios
y el silencio.

Cuando tú te quedes muerta,
cuando yo me quede muerto,
tendrán que enterrarnos juntos
y en silencio;

y cuando tú resucites,
cuando yo viva de nuevo,
nos volveremos a amar
en silencio;

y cuando todo se acabe
por siempre en el universo,
será un silencio de amor
el silencio.

Yo que crecí dentro de un árbol
tendría mucho que decir,
pero aprendí tanto silencio
que tengo mucho que callar
y eso se conoce creciendo
sin otro goce que crecer,
sin más pasión que la substancia,
sin más acción que la inocencia,
y por dentro el tiempo dorado
hasta que la altura lo llama
para convertirlo en naranja.

¡Salve, fecunda zona, que al sol enamorado circunscribes el vago curso, y cuanto ser se anima en cada vario clima, acariciada de su luz, concibes! Tú tejes al verano su guirnalda de granadas espigas; tú la uva das a la hirviente cuba; no de purpúrea fruta, o roja, o gualda, a tus florestas bellas falta matiz alguno; y bebe en ellas aromas mil el viento; y greyes van sin cuento paciendo tu verdura, desde el llano que tiene por lindero el horizonte, hasta el erguido monte, de inaccesible nieve siempre cano. Tú das la caña hermosa, de do la miel se acendra, por quien desdeña el mundo los panales; tú en urnas de coral cuajas la almendra que en la espumante jícara rebosa; bulle carmín viviente en tus nopales, que afrenta fuera al múrice de Tiro; y de tu añil la tinta generosa émula es de la lumbre del zafiro. El vino es tuyo, que la herida agave para los hijos vierte del Anahuac feliz; y la hoja es tuya, que, cuando de suave humo en espiras vagorosas huya, solazará el fastidio al ocio inerte. Tú vistes de jazmines el arbusto sabeo, y el perfume le das, que en los festines la fiebre insana templará a Lico. Para tus hijos la procera palma su vario feudo cría, y el ananás sazona su ambrosía; su blanco pan la yuca; sus rubias pomas la patata educa; y el algodón despliega al aura leve las rosas de oro y el vellón de nieve. Tendida para ti la fresca parcha en enramadas de verdor lozano, cuelga de sus sarmientos trepadores nectáreos globos y franjadas flores; y para ti el maíz, jefe altanero de la espigada tribu, hincha su grano; y para ti el banano desmaya al peso de su dulce carga; el banano, primero de cuantos concedió bellos presentes Providencia a las gentes del ecuador feliz con mano larga. No ya de humanas artes obligado el premio rinde opimo; no es a la podadera, no al arado deudor de su racimo; escasa industria bástale, cual puede hurtar a sus fatigas mano esclava; crece veloz, y cuando exhausto acaba, adulta prole en torno le sucede. Mas ¡oh! ¡si cual no cede el tuyo, fértil zona, a suelo alguno, y como de natura esmero ha sido, de tu indolente habitador lo fuera! ¡Oh! ¡si al falaz ruido, la dicha al fin supiese verdadera anteponer, que del umbral le llama del labrador sencillo, lejos del necio y vano fasto, el mentido brillo, el ocio pestilente ciudadano! ¿Por qué ilusión funesta aquellos que fortuna hizo señores de tan dichosa tierra y pingüe y varia, el cuidado abandonan y a la fe mercenaria las patrias heredades, y en el ciego tumulto se aprisionan de míseras ciudades, do la ambición proterva sopla la llama de civiles bandos, o al patriotismo la desidia enerva; do el lujo las costumbres atosiga, y combaten los vicios la incauta edad en poderosa liga? No allí con varoniles ejercicios se endurece el mancebo a la fatiga; mas la salud estraga en el abrazo de pérfida hermosura, que pone en almoneda los favores; mas pasatiempo estima prender aleve en casto seno el fuego de ilícitos amores; o embebecido le hallará la aurora en mesa infame de ruinoso juego. En tanto a la lisonja seductora del asiduo amador fácil oído da la consorte; crece en la materna escuela de la disipación y el galanteo la tierna virgen, y al delito espuela es antes el ejemplo que el deseo. ¿Y será que se formen de ese modo los ánimos heroicos denodados que fundan y sustentan los estados? ¿De la algazara del festín beodo, o de los coros de liviana danza, la dura juventud saldrá, modesta, orgullo de la patria, y esperanza? ¿Sabrá con firme pulso de la severa ley regir el freno; brillar en torno aceros homicidas en la dudosa lid verá sereno; o animoso hará frente al genio altivo del engreído mando en la tribuna, aquel que ya en la cuna durmió al arrullo del cantar lascivo, que riza el pelo, y se unge, y se atavía con femenil esmero, y en indolente ociosidad el día, o en criminal lujuria pasa entero? No así trató la triunfadora Roma las artes de la paz y de la guerra; antes fió las riendas del estado a la mano robusta que tostó el sol y encalleció el arado; y bajo el techo humoso campesino los hijos educó, que el conjurado mundo allanaron al valor latino. ¡Oh! ¡los que afortunados poseedores habéis nacido de la tierra hermosa, en que reseña hacer de sus favores, como para ganaros y atraeros, quiso Naturaleza bondadosa! romped el duro encanto que os tiene entre murallas prisioneros. El vulgo de las artes laborioso, el mercader que necesario al lujo al lujo necesita, los que anhelando van tras el señuelo del alto cargo y del honor ruidoso, la grey de aduladores parasita, gustosos pueblen ese infecto caos; el campo es vuestra herencia; en él gozaos. ¿Amáis la libertad? El campo habita, o allá donde el magnate entre armados satélites se mueve, y de la moda, universal señora, va la razón al triunfal carro atada, y a la fortuna la insensata plebe, y el noble al aura popular adora. ¿O la virtud amáis? ¡Ah, que el retiro, la solitaria calma en que, juez de sí misma, pasa el alma a las acciones muestra, es de la vida la mejor maestra! ¿Buscáis durables goces, felicidad, cuanta es al hombre dada y a su terreno asiento, en que vecina está la risa al llanto, y siempre, ¡ah! siempre donde halaga la flor, punza la espina? Id a gozar la suerte campesina; la regalada paz, que ni rencores al labrador, ni envidias acibaran; la cama que mullida le preparan el contento, el trabajo, el aire puro; y el sabor de los fáciles manjares, que dispendiosa gula no le aceda; y el asilo seguro de sus patrios hogares que a la salud y al regocijo hospeda. El aura respirad de la montaña, que vuelve al cuerpo laso el perdido vigor, que a la enojosa vejez retarda el paso, y el rostro a la beldad tiñe de rosa. ¿Es allí menos blanda por ventura de amor la llama, que templó el recato? ¿O menos aficiona la hermosura que de extranjero ornato y afeites impostores no se cura? ¿O el corazón escucha indiferente el lenguaje inocente que los afectos sin disfraz expresa, y a la intención ajusta la promesa? No del espejo al importuno ensayo la risa se compone, el paso, el gesto; ni falta allí carmín al rostro honesto que la modestia y la salud colora, ni la mirada que lanzó al soslayo tímido amor, la senda al alma ignora. ¿Esperaréis que forme más venturosos lazos himeneo, do el interés barata, tirano del deseo, ajena mano y fe por nombre o plata, que do conforme gusto, edad conforme, y elección libre, y mutuo ardor los ata? Allí también deberes hay que llenar: cerrad, cerrad las hondas heridas de la guerra; el fértil suelo, áspero ahora y bravo, al desacostumbrado yugo torne del arte humana, y le tribute esclavo. Del obstruido estanque y del molino recuerden ya las aguas el camino; el intrincado bosque el hacha rompa, consuma el fuego; abrid en luengas calles la oscuridad de su infructuosa pompa. Abrigo den los valles a la sedienta caña; la manzana y la pera en la fresca montaña el cielo olviden de su madre España; adorne la ladera el cafetal; ampare a la tierna teobroma en la ribera la sombra maternal de su bucare; aquí el vergel, allá la huerta ría… ¿Es ciego error de ilusa fantasía? Ya dócil a tu voz, agricultura, nodriza de las gentes, la caterva servil armada va de corvas hoces. Mírola ya que invade la espesura de la floresta opaca; oigo las voces, siento el rumor confuso; el hierro suena, los golpes el lejano eco redobla; gime el ceibo anciano, que a numerosa tropa largo tiempo fatiga; batido de cien hachas, se estremece, estalla al fin, y rinde el ancha copa. Huyó la fiera; deja el caro nido, deja la prole implume el ave, y otro bosque no sabido de los humanos va a buscar doliente… ¿Qué miro? Alto torrente de sonorosa llama corre, y sobre las áridas ruinas de la postrada selva se derrama. El raudo incendio a gran distancia brama, y el humo en negro remolino sube, aglomerando nube sobre nube. Ya de lo que antes era verdor hermoso y fresca lozanía, sólo difuntos troncos, sólo cenizas quedan; monumento de la lucha mortal, burla del viento. Mas al vulgo bravío de las tupidas plantas montaraces, sucede ya el fructífero plantío en muestra ufana de ordenadas haces. Ya ramo a ramo alcanza, y a los rollizos tallos hurta el día; ya la primera flor desvuelve el seno, bello a la vista, alegre a la esperanza; a la esperanza, que riendo enjuga. del fatigado agricultor la frente, y allá a lo lejos el opimo fruto, y la cosecha apañadora pinta, que lleva de los campos el tributo, colmado el cesto, y con la falda en cinta, y bajo el peso de los largos bienes con que al colono acude, hace crujir los vastos almacenes. ¡Buen Dios! no en vano sude, mas a merced y a compasión te mueva la gente agricultora del ecuador, que del desmayo triste con renovado aliento vuelve ahora, y tras tanta zozobra, ansia, tumulto, tantos años de fiera devastación y militar insulto, aún más que tu clemencia antigua implora. Su rústica piedad, pero sincera, halle a tus ojos gracia; no el risueño porvenir que las penas le aligera, cual de dorado sueño visión falaz, desvanecido llore; intempestiva lluvia no maltrate el delicado embrión; el diente impío de insecto roedor no lo devore; sañudo vendaval no lo arrebate, ni agote al árbol el materno jugo la calorosa sed de largo estío. Y pues al fin te plugo, árbitro de la suerte soberano, que, suelto el cuello de extranjero yugo, erguiese al cielo el hombre americano, bendecida de ti se arraigue y medre su libertad; en el más hondo encierra de los abismos la malvada guerra, y el miedo de la espada asoladora al suspicaz cultivador no arredre del arte bienhechora, que las familias nutre y los estados; la azorada inquietud deje las almas, deje la triste herrumbre los arados. Asaz de nuestros padres malhadados expiamos la bárbara conquista. ¿Cuántas doquier la vista no asombran erizadas soledades, do cultos campos fueron, do ciudades? De muertes, proscripciones, suplicios, orfandades, ¿quién contará la pavorosa suma? Saciadas duermen ya de sangre ibera las sombras de Atahualpa y Moctezuma. ¡Ah! desde el alto asiento, en que escabel te son alados coros que velan en pasmado acatamiento la faz ante la lumbre de tu frente, (si merece por dicha una mirada tuya la sin ventura humana gente), el ángel nos envía, el ángel de la paz, que al crudo ibero haga olvidar la antigua tiranía, y acatar reverente el que a los hombres sagrado diste, imprescriptible fuero; que alargar le haga al injuriado hermano, (¡ensangrentó la asaz!) la diestra inerme; y si la innata mansedumbre duerme, la despierte en el pecho americano. El corazón lozano que una feliz oscuridad desdeña, que en el azar sangriento del combate alborozado late, y codicioso de poder o fama, nobles peligros ama; baldón estime sólo y vituperio el prez que de la patria no reciba, la libertad más dulce que el imperio, y más hermosa que el laurel la oliva. Ciudadano el soldado, deponga de la guerra la librea; el ramo de victoria colgado al ara de la patria sea, y sola adorne al mérito la gloria. De su trïunfo entonces, Patria mía, verá la paz el suspirado día; la paz, a cuya vista el mundo llena alma, serenidad y regocijo; vuelve alentado el hombre a la faena, alza el ancla la nave, a las amigas auras encomendándose animosa, enjámbrase el taller, hierve el cortijo, y no basta la hoz a las espigas. ¡Oh jóvenes naciones, que ceñida alzáis sobre el atónito occidente de tempranos laureles la cabeza! honrad el campo, honrad la simple vida del labrador, y su frugal llaneza. Así tendrán en vos perpetuamente la libertad morada, y freno la ambición, y la ley templo. Las gentes a la senda de la inmortalidad, ardua y fragosa, se animarán, citando vuestro ejemplo. Lo emulará celosa vuestra posteridad; y nuevos nombres añadiendo la fama a los que ahora aclama, «hijos son éstos, hijos, (pregonará a los hombres) de los que vencedores superaron de los Andes la cima; de los que en Boyacá, los que en la arena de Maipo, y en Junín, y en la campaña gloriosa de Apurima, postrar supieron al león de España

Ya que no puedo ser libre
agrandaré mis prisiones.

Cambiaré los tristes muros
por alegres horizontes.
No pisaré ningún suelo
sino abismos de la noche.
Techos que a mí me cobijen
cielos serán los mejores.

Ya que no puedo ser libre
agrandaré mis prisiones.

After Mary Ruefle

I’m always up for a smoke, says my sister. I, too, am always up for one, I say. so we bundle ourselves in hats, scarves, coats. at least we are outside, not in, says my sister, & I say the same. the ice of January changes to steam as we speak. the smoke from the Lucky Strike burns in our throats. breath & smoke. smoke & breath. fire & mirror. cold & clear. & as an hour passes, the clouds pink above us. inside my head, she says, there is a sun that never rises. & in my chest, I say, a bell that rings without end. what is seamlessly continuous except time or nothing? then, out the door an attendant pokes his head. time’s up, he says. I nod & my sister snuffs out her cigarette & disappears into the ward from its high-walled courtyard.

Si muero sobrevíveme con tanta fuerza pura
que despiertes la furia del pálido y del frío,
de sur a sur levanta tus ojos indelebles,
de sol a sol que suene tu boca de guitarra.

No quiero que vacilen tu risa ni tus pasos,
no quiero que se muera mi herencia de alegría,
no llames a mi pecho, estoy ausente.
Vive en mi ausencia como en una casa.

Es una casa tan grande la ausencia
que pasarás en ella a través de los muros
y colgarás los cuadros en el aire.

Es una casa tan transparente la ausencia
que yo sin vida te veré vivir
y si sufres, mi amor, me moriré otra vez.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.

I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
Myself moving forward then and now and forever,
Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,
Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,
Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,
Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.

A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.

His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.

I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,
Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?
Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of
my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

One morning recently I went very early to the beach. It was an unbearably hot day in March, but the beach was still deserted, or at least that was my first impression. This was quickly undone by the sight of four nuns, two in black and two in white, all picking things up from the sand. The ones in white looked like two doves. Curiosity got the better of me, and I went up to one of them. “Can I help with anything? What are you looking for?” I asked. “Oh nothing, just shells. We’re just amusing ourselves until someone comes to fetch us.” One of them was from Rio itself and lives on Rua Oriente, and the other three were from Belo Horizonte and had come here for treatment: they have to go to the beach every day, although they are forbidden from going into the sea.

It was very beautiful to see and hear the four nuns chirruping and having fun.

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Tengo miedo a perder la maravilla
de tus ojos de estatua y el acento
que me pone de noche en la mejilla
la solitaria rosa de tu aliento.

Tengo pena de ser en esta orilla
tronco sin ramas, y lo que más siento
es no tener la flor, pulpa o arcilla,
para el gusano de mi sufrimiento.

Si tú eres el tesoro oculto mío,
si eres mi cruz y mi dolor mojado,
si soy el perro de tu señorío.

No me dejes perder lo que he ganado
y decora las aguas de tu río
con hojas de mi Otoño enajenado.

Tentatively you touched the keyboard, and paused,
scanning intently as if you knew the score
impossible to play, all the chords
suddenly tense as a throat tightened by grief.
Watching you stop the music, looking so lost

before the language that was most your own,
tenderness seemed to spread across the room.
One window was still half-open, and there it was clear
the crystalline waves were breaking, softly enough
to mutter something just beyond the frame.

Now the butterflies passed, but not before
we saw them dance across the window’s azure.
A branch quivered, touched by the rays of the sun.
But nothing around us came to light in words,
and your gentle ignorance was mine, was ours.

After my sons grew up and moved away,
a globe of the world, cradled in its caliper,

remained high up on a shelf in their room,
where it had been already for many years.

Rounder than we know the earth to be,
the globe marks boundaries that have since
dissolved,

while the colors that denote those stitched-together
places,
remain bright, if arbitrary, except the green-blue

seas.

So much about a globe is obvious, so much obscure,
and yet reaching up to take it down to pack away

I see, smaller than a child’s thumb, the light bulb
that from the hollow center made their dark room
glow

and their hands, the size of continents, turned
translucent
when they palmed the planet to make it spin.

One evening
I met the mango.
At first there were four or five of them
in a bowl.
They looked like stones you find
in the rivers of Pennsylvania
when the waters are low.
That size, and almost round.
Mossy green.
But this was a rich house, and clever too.
After salmon and salads,
mangoes for everyone appeared on blue plates,
each one cut in half and scored
and shoved forward from its rind, like an orange flower,
cubist and juicy.
When I began to eat
things happened.
All through the sweetness I heard voices,
men and women talking about something—
another country, and trouble.
It wasn’t my language, but I understood enough.
Jungles, and death. The ships
leaving the harbors, their holds
filled with mangoes.
Children, brushing the flies away
from their hot faces
as they worked in the fields.
Men, and guns.
The voices all ran together
so that I tasted them in the taste of the mango,
a sharp gravel in the flesh.
Later, in the kitchen, I saw the stones
like torn-out tongues
embedded in the honeyed centers.
They were talking among themselves—
family news,
a few lines of a song

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.

The university gave me a new, elegant
classroom to teach in. Only one thing,
they said. You can’t bring your dog.
It’s in my contract, I said. (I had
made sure of that.)

We bargained and I moved to an old
classroom in an old building. Propped
the door open. Kept a bowl of water
in the room. I could hear Ben among
other voices barking, howling in the
distance. Then they would all arrive —
Ben, his pals, maybe an unknown dog
or two, all of them thirsty and happy.
They drank, they flung themselves down
among the students. The students loved
it. They all wrote thirsty, happy poems.

Someone gave me a sweater. Which might seem simple enough. But it isn’t.

The person who sent me the sweater was a young woman whom I’ve never met. I know from a mutual friend that the young woman is a brilliant designer of clothes. She lives in São Paulo. When she was in Rio, she had lunch with that mutual friend. She was wearing a really lovely sweater, which my friend thought would suit me perfectly, and so he asked her to make one exactly the same. It turns out that the young woman is one of my readers—or have I got that wrong?—and when she found out who the sweater was for, she insisted that she send it to me herself. My friend agreed.

So here I am the owner of the most beautiful sweater ever created by human hand. It’s a kind of luminous red and seems to encapsulate everything that is beneficial for itself and for me. The color is its soul. I’m writing this before leaving the house, and I’m wearing the sweater. Coupled with the fire and flame of its color is the fact that it was given to me with such affection that it wraps about me and erases all trace of the coldness felt by someone who feels alone. It is the caress of genuine friendship. I’m going to wear it for the first time today. It is a little too tight, but maybe that’s how it’s meant to be: a glorious celebration of the female form. When I finish writing this, I’m going to perfume myself with my secret perfume: I do like secret things. And then I will be ready to face the cold, not just the real cold, but all the other kinds too.

I am a woman too many.

—after William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us. Late and soon
it’s morning, phone in hand, and a screen on my wrist powers
on to report the no rest I had. News, a tragedy—so easily ours—
already breaking as I crack my eggs. Rage and prayers, rage and prayers, a boon
for the tycoon’s fear-campaign, clicks for the zillionaire buying up the moon.
Ad, ad, an AI figment, someone squawking, someone hawking—hours
consumed, of this only life, and who is left in the garden, who is tending the flowers?
I am trying to hear the birdsong through the auto-tune
of all this ubiquitous engineered crooning, but a podcast informs me silence will be
extinct by the weekend, gone like thought and the good kind of alone. Peace is      outworn;
it’s chaos that feeds the algorithm, no likes for the actual, the tangible. No lea
without a billboard promising Hell as if it isn’t here. But don’t be forlorn,
I’m sold—the world is yours! (after this ad) unending and enhanced on a screen. Don’t      mind the sea
at the door. Time for a selfie, suggests my phone. A filter. I can add (for free!) horns.

must look so small, undetectable even,

from the vantage point where I imagine

a god could see me, and I do sometimes imagine a god like a sentient star

out beyond where our instruments could find it, then I talk myself

out of the image. Out of the concept entirely. From a distance, I know

I’m an ant tunneling my way through sand between plastic panels,

watched—or not—from outside. My puny movements on this planet,

all the things I’ve done or built with my own body or mind, seem

like nothing at all. But from the inside this life feels enormous, unlimited

by the self—by selfness— vaster even than the sparkling

dark it can’t be seen from.

a certain cleverness, a certain brightness but no madness, at
least not madness in its best full-blown
gamble
and maybe the energy is just not there anymore, maybe
not only is the air polluted, maybe the brain waves have been
lessened, maybe the structure of the human spirit has been
brought around to this dim finality of
zero
where anybody who appears half-right (just a touch of it) is
almost always elevated to the
hero-leader position.

it is more and more difficult—no, it’s just damned
impossible—to accept and admire those of us who are
put forward as great in our times.
these
are suspect,
of nobility
of originality
of even
a simple goodness.

bones and bones and bones
moving under the sun

they say that nothing is wasted
either that
or
it all is.

[signature]

I have had my dream—like others— and it has come to nothing, so that I remain now carelessly with feet planted on the ground and look up at the sky— feeling my clothes about me, the weight of my body in my shoes, the rim of my hat, air passing in and out at my nose—and decide to dream no more.

My mother took the bag from its box— home to my father’s ashes for thirteen years— and poured its heft into a form she made on the potter’s wheel—a vase, damp and unfired. She pinched the rotating lip, and sealed the clay perfectly shut, a technique I haven’t yet mastered.

We planned to launch it like a football at low tide, but when we arrived, the beach was lined with people, and there was no subtle way for my brother to toss it out past the children kneeling in the surf, the surfers awaiting the break.

To carry my father out, arm above my head, heavy with him— or hold him against my chest, side-stroking with one hand while the clay disintegrated into the water— I wasn’t dressed for it.

Instead, we dropped him in the water by the docks by the old Shrimp Shack, all 6’4” of him, and I watched the vessel slowly descend, a few bubbles emerging as if the last breath left in a dying lung.

Now as I watch you, strong of arm and endurance, battling and struggling
With the waves that rush against you, ever with invincible strength returning
Into my heart, grown each day more tranquil and peaceful, comes a fierce longing
Of mind and soul that will not be appeased until, like you, I breast yon deep and boundless expanse of blue.

With an outward stroke of power intense your mighty arm goes forth,
Cleaving its way through waters that rise and roll, ever a ceaseless vigil keeping
Over the treasures beneath.

My heart goes out to you of dauntless courage and spirit indomitable,
And though my lips would speak, my spirit forbids me to ask,
“Is your heart as true as your arm?”

Todo es muy simple mucho
más simple y sin embargo
aún así hay momentos
en que es demasiado para mí
en que no entiendo
y no sé si reírme a carcajadas
o si llorar de miedo
o estarme aquí sin llanto
sin risas
en silencio
asumiendo mi vida
mi tránsito
mi tiempo.

The best ones I ever ate I ate

that summer, him dead six months, me not yet

forevered again to anyone. Tomatoes

the only fever, many- chambered, jelly-seeded

—probably slicers, nothing rare. Dissected

into the same glass bowl night after night for a dinner

date with the pulpy sun on its way through

my yard. Fayetteville, Arkansas, city of wreckage.

Mozzarella, basil, salt. Oil, the August air

humid, nearly liquid. One evening I sat

on my back stoop in a puddle of light

and knew I could live without him, and was.

I ate the same dinner from the same bowl

until the decision ceased to be a decision.

The puppy won’t stop eating rocks and moss. Sometimes I pry open her mouth to find

whole splinters of bark on her pink tongue. We try to train her how to sit, how to stick out

her paw when we ask. When she poops in the house, we bring it to the yard so she knows where to go

next time. And later, after it’s dried in the sun, after the flies have had their fill, we scoop it up and throw it in the woods.

Here, the world is perpetual March, and we love a dog as if that’s the only thing we can do, as if

death cannot touch this slice of New England, the trees growing a canopy of shade just for us.

Yesterday, we strapped the smallest life jacket to her furry body, took her swimming for the first time.

We watched her paddle from the shore to the center of the lake, then back again until she grew tired. And last night

while we argued about things that won’t matter in a month, he was still petting the puppy’s wet head,

and I cried like I’d never known a kindness so pure and gentle as that, as a pat on the head

for doing nothing but existing. I wouldn’t call this jealousy, but there is no word

in my human tongue that seems appropriate. It’s the feeling of all the stones I swallowed in my youth

growing  jagged in my belly. And I scratch the surface of my skin with any sharp thing

I can find to cut them out.

Tus huesos que chocan
Como placas tectónicas
Y destruyen reinos y crean países nuevos
Y llueven inundan arrasan derrumban y
Tus huesos que chocan
Como placas tectónicas
Y me obligan a a empezar de nuevo
A ser valiente y a construirme
Esta casa sobre ellos
Y hoy hace tan bueno
Que tengo ganas de empezar a vivir
En este lugar sin nombre sin gente
Este lugar que huele a río
Y mira esa montaña qué alta es
Tanto como yo me dices
Y creo que puedo subirla y
Tus huesos que chocan
Como placas tectónicas
Y todos los árboles
Son tan pequeños como yo
Me dices
Son cachorros
Y es tierno verlos crecer igual que creces tú
Alguien dijo una vez que hay que
escribir un libro tener un hijo y plantar un árbol
Y yo quiero escribirte a ti bajo la sombra del nieto de este roble y
Tus huesos que chocan
Como placas tectónicas
Y eso que ves
Son las estrellas
Se ven porque en este lugar nuevo
Se ve el horizonte desde cualquier punto y
Todo empieza de nuevo y
Tú empiezas de nuevo y
Yo empiezo de nuevo y
Tus huesos que chocan
Como placas tectónicas
Y la tierra
Que empieza
De nuevo.

No somos más
que el tiempo que nos queda
caminando hacia el olvido
que seremos.
Es duro, pero es así.
El resto, literatura.
Lo mejor
es no pensarlo mucho:
seguir andando,
tomar cafés, enamorarse,
ver la lluvia….

Lord, when you send the rain think about it, please, a little? Do not get carried away by the sound of falling water, the marvelous light on the falling water. I am beneath that water. It falls with great force and the light Blinds me to the light.

You will need to state the reason for your visit.
Don’t say because I want to walk down old roads
and caress stone walls the color of my skin.

You will need to state the reason for your visit.
Dont say because the olives are ready for harvest
and I will coax the fruit from the trees,
press it into liquid gold.

You will need to state the reason for your visit.
Dont say because my parents house
still sits empty on a bluff overlooking the sea,
the green shutters my grandfather had just painted
remain sealed shut
and the army listed the property’ owners
as absentees.

You will need to state the reason for your visit.
Don’t say because I am carrying prayers in my suitcase
for a people who wait,
and I’ll unfold them
embroidered linens of verse
and spread them out across the land.

Tengo miedo de verte
necesidad de verte
esperanza de verte
desazones de verte

tengo ganas de hallarte
preocupación de hallarte
certidumbre de hallarte
pobres dudas de hallarte

tengo urgencia de oírte
alegría de oírte
buena suerte de oírte
y temores de oírte

o sea
resumiendo
estoy jodido
y radiante
quizá más lo primero
que lo segundo
y también
viceversa.

Después de todo, todo ha sido nada,
a pesar de que un día lo fue todo.
Después de nada, o después de todo
supe que todo no era más que nada.

Grito ¡Todo!, y el eco dice ¡Nada!
Grito ¡Nada!, y el eco dice ¡Todo!
Ahora sé que la nada lo era todo.
y todo era ceniza de la nada.

No queda nada de lo que fue nada.
(Era ilusión lo que creía todo
y que, en definitiva, era la nada.)

Qué más da que la nada fuera nada
si más nada será, después de todo,
después de tanto todo para nada.

Volverán las oscuras golondrinas
en tu balcón sus nidos a colgar,
y otra vez con el ala a sus cristales
jugando llamarán.

Pero aquellas que el vuelo refrenaban
tu hermosura y mi dicha a contemplar,
aquellas que aprendieron nuestros nombres….
ésas… ¡no volverán!

Volverán las tupidas madreselvas
de tu jardín las tapias a escalar
y otra vez a la tarde aún más hermosas
sus flores se abrirán.

Pero aquellas cuajadas de rocío
cuyas gotas mirábamos temblar
y caer como lágrimas del día….
ésas… ¡no volverán!

Volverán del amor en tus oídos
las palabras ardientes a sonar,
tu corazón de su profundo sueño
tal vez despertará.

Pero mudo y absorto y de rodillas
como se adora a Dios ante su altar,
como yo te he querido…, desengáñate,
así… ¡no te querrán!

Para Alberto Moyano

Esas mañanas de domingo,
en invierno,
a primera hora:

las calles recién regadas,
el aire fresco,
limpio,
el olor a cruasán de las cafeterías,
la locura
de los pájaros…

Como si la vida
te dijese:
mira, aquí me tienes,
vuelve a intentarlo.

After Sappho

What cannot be said will be wept

what cannot be wept will be bled

what cannot be bled will be buried

what is buried will rot rot rot

I’ve got this Adidas track jacket

with a vibrant print of flowers

exploding all over the polyester

It’s loud but I like it like I like

mashed potatoes in winter the comfort

of it even if sometimes people comment

on it like the man at the gas station did today

That’s a good jacket    he nodded

as he got into his car    Thanks I replied

I have a collection of them    Vintage on eBay

Okay he laughed Fabulous!

Whatever you need

Whatever you need

Which I took to mean my jacket

was a form of weeping thus I wept

as my car got sudsed and buffed

my arms sheathed in exploding flowers

one jacket is enough but I have six

Isn’t the moon dark too,
most of the time?

And doesn’t the white page
seem unfinished

without the dark stain
of alphabets?

When God demanded light,
he didn’t banish darkness.

Instead he invented
ebony and crows

and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.

Or did you mean to ask
“Why are you sad so often?”

Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.

A sea of colorful clouds
Was there to see me off,
The world awaits,
As I Li Bai,
Left Baidi.
It was the crack of dawn.
It was three hundred miles,
To reach Jiangling,
A thousand li,
If one counts in Chinese.
Along the way, on both banks,
Monkeys spoke.
I am not sure why,
Or what they said,
I am not sure why I bring it up.
It makes more sense
To say
They laughed,
To see this sight,
Beneath ten thousand towering mountains
A little boat bobbing
On the mighty Yangtze

Los suspiros son aire, y van al aire. Las lágrimas son agua, y van al mar. Díme, mujer: cuando el amor se olvida, ¿Sabes tú adónde va?

Al fin termino por entender
que yo amo esta ciudad hasta la rabia:
es tierra y abono para la nostalgia.
benditos constructores que no dejan ni una casa,
amadísimos urbanistas paisajistas
que siempre cambian los bancos de las plazas
(nada conserva su nombre
y lo agradezco de todo corazón)
que nada se acerque a la eternidad,
que la ciudad que yo conozco
no la conozcan mis hijos,
que nunca rodemos por la misma calle,
que la nostalgia se construya todas las quincenas.

Σε περιμένω. Μη ρωτάς γιατί.
Μη ρωτάς γιατί περιμένει εκείνος
Που δεν έχει τι να περιμένει.
Και όμως περιμένει.
Γιατί σαν πάψει να περιμένει
Είναι σα να παύει να βλέπει
Σα να παύει να κοιτά τον ουρανό
Να παύει να ελπίζει
Σα να παύει να ζει.
Αβάσταχτο είναι… Πικρό είναι
Να σιμώνεις αργά στ’ ακρογιάλι
Χωρίς να είσαι ναυαγός
Ούτε σωτήρας
Παρά ναυάγιο…