Hay un lugar entre dos grupos de árboles donde el pasto crece cuesta arriba
y el viejo camino de la revolución se interrumpe entre sombras
cerca de un templo abandonado por los perseguidos
que desaparecieron en esas mismas sombras.
Por allí caminé juntando setas al filo del espanto, pero no te equivoques
este no es un poema ruso, este no es otro lugar sino aquí,
nuestro país que se acerca a su propia verdad y espanto,
a su propia manera de hacer desaparecer a la gente.
No voy a decirte dónde está ese lugar, la trama oscura del bosque
que se encuentra con la franja inmaculada de la luz –
cruces fantasmas, paraíso de mantillo:
ya sé quién quiere comprarlo, venderlo, hacerlo desaparecer.
Y no voy a decirte dónde es ¿Para qué te digo esto, entonces?
Porque todavía escuchás, porque en tiempos como estos
siquiera para tenerte escuchando es necesario
hablar sobre los árboles.
Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995, W. W. Norton, 1995
*
21 poemas de amor
I
Cuando sea, en esta ciudad parpadean las pantallas
con pornografía, vampiros de ciencia ficción,
matones victimizados doblados bajo el látigo,
además hay que caminar… nada más, caminar
entre la basura mojada y las crueldades de nuestros barrios
en primer plano.
Tenemos que agarrar nuestras vidas
de aquellos sueños rancios, del borboteo del metal, de esas desgracias,
y de la begonia roja que destella peligrosamente
en la entrada de un edificio de seis pisos
o de las chicas de piernas largas que juegan a la pelota
en el patio de la escuela.
Nadie nos imaginó. Queremos vivir como árboles,
sicomoros llameantes en el aire sulfúrico,
moteados de cicatrices, pero floreciendo con exuberancia,
con nuestra pasión animal enraizada en la ciudad.
Twenty One Love Poems, Elfie's Press, 1976
Adrienne Rich (Baltimore, Estados Unidos, 1929-Santa Cruz, Estados Unidos, 2012)
Traducción de Sandra Toro
Adrienne Rich (Baltimore, Estados Unidos, 1929-Santa Cruz, Estados Unidos, 2012)
Traducción de Sandra Toro
Foto: Adrienne Rich, 17 de noviembre de 2006, Nueva York David Corio/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images
What Kind of Times Are These
There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.
Twenty-One Love Poems
I
Whenever in this city, screens flicker
with pornography, with science-fiction vampires,
victimized hirelings bending to the lash,
we also have to walk . . . if simply as we walk
through the rainsoaked garbage, the tabloid cruelties
of our own neighborhoods.
We need to grasp our lives inseparable
from those rancid dreams, that blurt of metal, those disgraces,
and the red begonia perilously flashing
from a tenement sill six stories high,
or the long-legged young girls playing ball
in the junior highschool playground.
No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,
sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,
dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,
our animal passion rooted in the city.
What Kind of Times Are These
There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.
Twenty-One Love Poems
I
Whenever in this city, screens flicker
with pornography, with science-fiction vampires,
victimized hirelings bending to the lash,
we also have to walk . . . if simply as we walk
through the rainsoaked garbage, the tabloid cruelties
of our own neighborhoods.
We need to grasp our lives inseparable
from those rancid dreams, that blurt of metal, those disgraces,
and the red begonia perilously flashing
from a tenement sill six stories high,
or the long-legged young girls playing ball
in the junior highschool playground.
No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,
sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,
dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,
our animal passion rooted in the city.
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario