Ars poetica
Stubborn, the yellow leaf
does not let go of the branch.
I watch her battle
against wind and rain,
against gravity.
For days, I’ve been watching
her quiet effort,
her tiny tragedy.
Her persistence
does not deserve oblivion.
That is why
I put her here,
in this verse
from which she will not fall.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Pat Brennan
I am from here
To Pat Brennan and his students
One is from the places
that he has arrived,
from the language
in which he can’t dream
and one day it happens
and he wakes up wondering
which one is now his house
when there is always a heart
elsewhere.
One comes from the streets
that never are the same when he returns.
One comes from the moment
in which he decided to leave
and from that other one
in which he realizes
that everything departs.
That it is impossible to stay, even if you stay.
That it is impossible, even if you come back, to be back.
I write a verse
that is like a farewell
and I point at it:
I am from here.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Pat Brennan
Echoes
Bitten by her age
my grandmother talks to the previous one
that saw her through my eyes:
Didn’t it ever hurt you
leaving me like this, with five children?
You never thought about us?
I feel guilty of the silence
that my face, before myself, kept
but I clarify: my love, I am your grandson,
the first child of your youngest son,
I’m the one who lives far away.
I was going to say she tells me,
that it didn’t make sense
that I was so old
and you remain the same.
She hugs me with relief,
as if this conversation
between us
was over.
But it will happen, as usual,
next time we see each other.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Pat Brennan
My mother looks out her window and says it’s raining
I look outside
it is actually raining She tells me
when you were a child you looked for puddles
to see the clouds I open my window
everything smells like the taste of jicama
we hang up the phone step outside
and smile
as if we were looking at the same rain.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Pat Brennan
Clarification
It’s a lie that trees
do not know the world.
A tree travels by virtue of its birds
and also travels inward
when sinking its roots.
It all makes sense:
Nothing is more fixed to the earth
than a tree,
nothing moves more through the air
than a bird
(It is a fruit
that flies)
and poetry is the fact
that they need each other.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Kevin McHugh
Witness
Your daughter is dancing, says my wife
touching her belly.
For the past five months
I have been a witness
of what happens there,
under her hands.
My wife is a house inside my house
and I am outside of my own heart.
I am sure she is happy, she says
and I would give up poetry
in exchange for having, inside me, my daughter.
For feeling that dance that bonds them
to all beginnings.
But the option does not exist
and I do what I can:
cooking, fulfilling cravings,
writing a poem in which I say what I can see
from this side of the skin
in which mystery embodies itself.
And I testify, with loving envy,
that an everyday miracle
is a miracle
and nothing less.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Kevin McHugh
Letter to my newborn daughter to help her christen the world
Now that the world is brand new
I want to go out to the balcony with you
and tell you
this is tree, this is a leaf
and that jumping on that branch
is a fruit a bird a flower
is the song of the bird
it is the air
but someday
you are going to ask me
of love and war
of hope and death
of why we came to be born
precisely now
precisely here
and those answers
I also ignore.
Instead, I offer you
my little certainties:
Everything is in sight
if you pay attention
to the little things.
There is more truth in an embrace than in a book.
Everything in the world
is dark and vital
like a root,
beautiful and destructive
like a wildfire.
You must live
without fearing death, your own or others.
We need it to return to the beginning.
Now that the world
is completely new
I give you, also
these two amulets
so you can save them
or wear them in your hair:
Silence is music.
I love you.
Translated by Manuel Iris and Kevin McHugh
