LatinosUSA

Ode to Chance

It is early winter, and the room is colder than outside.
The tattered screen window still clings to the frame.
Dust and cobwebs filter the cold air.

The osmanthus no longer breathes out fragrance,
having stopped growing. For eleven years—
it is the first time I’ve noticed
this prisoner trapped between two buildings
has grown taller than my fourth-floor window.

By the basement window of the opposite building, beneath the balcony,
lie two black-and-white cats, one large, one small.
They must be mother and son, or father and daughter.
The kitten rests its head on the big cat’s flank.
in front of them are clumps of shredded paper.

They have been lying there all along,
they make me feel even colder,
especially on such a gloomy day.

They wait for nothing,
nor is anything waiting for them,
their reward is my gaze.

They do not mew, just remain still as if in contemplation,
they are no more than two cats—
or perhaps, more than just cats.

On sunny days, I’ve seen them
crawling on the lawn streaked with yellow and green,
belly to the ground. I once whistled at them.

The only certainty is
their disappearance will go unnoticed by me.
They and I, we are equally stubborn.

~~

A Blank Canvas Is the Start of Each Day

The canvas is stretched, already standing there firmly—
a vast expanse of white snow, not yet marked
by the footprints of humans or animals, not yet
stirred by breaths, soft or heavy, that might lift snow dust.

This is the silence of creation’s dawn,
waiting for a form to emerge:
a red fox refining elixirs,
a young wolf that sweeps away its own tracks with its tail
yet becomes all the more exposed for it.

More likely, it is a splitting abyss
at our feet, yawning, steaming,
smelling of sulfur. The artist has not yet appeared.
He is in another room, in light flecked with particles,
rubbing his slightly stiff hands—this is winter.

Waiting is silence, a silence that spreads
from one room to another, a silence like a breath
leaving tense, fine beads of sweat on the windowpane.
This is the silence in snow field, waiting
for the first stuttering lines of verse to take shape.

Only a curious cat tries, in this mirror without reflection,
to see the childhood of a striped tiger.
Working while waiting, dwelling in darkness while waiting—
what enduring patience this is, with no hidden mouth
whispering to him the first canto of Inferno.
The artist waits for his jet-lagged self.

Just as the poet, each day must face a sheet
of equally desolate white paper, like a blind man
groping on white for the traces of words
and the sparse or dense pinholes of thought.

Each time, failure looms possible—
slipping in this white mire,
sinking, unable to pull free.
Every stroke, every line, every moment hangs by a thread.
Yet the flat brush and sharp pencil,
still cautiously and calmly, reach toward
that ageless desolation.

~~

On Exquisiteness

Exquisiteness is repeatedly tapping at joints so tiny
they require a magnifying glass, even a microscope, to see—
as if words have contracted knee rigidity,
needing little leather hammers to tap and pound.

Exquisiteness is a smooth, still vase:
no birds nest in it, nor can flowers be inserted; it lets no light through,
like a wise man whose ears have shriveled into his skull.

Exquisiteness is a sterile flower
not even a vase to hold it
plucked and placed in the empty grave of its own mouth.

(This poem, too, is rather exquisite.)

~~

Hesitation Before the Journey Begins

—written before embarking on the translation of William Carlos Williams’ Paterson

Your body still hesitates on the cliff
all afternoon, your soul drifts on dark waters
the body is gloomy, gazing down, lost in thought
at this soul-apprentice’s euphoria

There is no craft more difficult than this
each time it feels like leaving the world entirely behind
bare hands, an unruly mind
are all the provisions—no companions, no maps

That unvisited land, whether miracle or desolation
you must reach it; you must share a single body with these words
another language, another rhythm
the nine Muses have left their father’s throne one by one
you don’t know to which you should humbly offer your prayer

Your fifty-seven-year-old knees tremble
yet your young soul already longs for adventure
it is simple and pure, it knows nothing
transcending our shared complexity

Then let me send this whisper to you, Williams:
all journeys must come to an end
since you resolved to start from details and reach abstraction
then let me, start from these words
and reach the various details you lived through
and at the steep places beyond my reach
stretch out your equally bare, brotherly hand

From chaos, like an unknowing sun
rising from those unfired clay tablets
renewing us both simultaneously, from front and back
from addition and subtraction, from gathering and circulation

~~

I Hear the Lament of All Creatures

It is summer noon, the trees cast down shade and drowsiness,
somehow, I have come upon this out-of-the-way road,
stretching endlessly along a red brick wall,
bare, unshielded, with no one coming from the other side.

It feels as if I have walked this road for years,
for generations, so long that the reason is lost,
the sky, too, is bare and glaring, not a wisp of cloud,
the heat makes the colors of things,
like a Pointillist seascape, fragment and merge.

I walk almost mechanically, not knowing where I am bound;
this road seems to lead nowhere, but just then,
as if rising from a stagnant canal
a faint lament drifts up,
I see a wretched creature huddled in a corner, filthy, trembling,
ashamed of its pregnancy.

It is hard to tell if it is a sheep or a dog—its fur is matted,
draped with clumps of dust. Its meekness comes from despair,
it looks at me as if at an approaching executioner,
warmth rises from its gently heaving belly,
I stare at it in horror, veering off the road.

It is like a pile of dirty snow melting away,
its narrow, evasive eyes are the last thing left,
it is noon, and I trudge alone along the straight brick wall,
dreaming of the paradise of the old factory beyond it,
from deep beneath its bare chimney,
comes the lament and prayer of all creatures
suffering alongside humanity’s original sin.