>> We are going to read -- Two poems or three?
Two. Ok. The first one is probably the only poem I've ever written that says something
about the fact that I'm Mexican because there's no Mexican that you can identify in my person.
There's a person that belongs in the Spanish language, merely in that, in the country
or in a way of conceiving things that is typically Mexican, anything like that.
Perhaps I'm just an outsider that belongs in the Spanish language.
This poem, as the other one that we're going to read, oscillates between a lyric tempo
and what could be called prose poetry that tends to blend the autobiography
into what is strictly a revelation.
And Prism is the first one and it talks about pilgrimage that goes
to the city of Chalma every year.
And it goes exactly in front of the place where I live nd I've always desired
to be part of that pilgrimage, you know?
As an outsider, I can't be part of it.
So --
>> One other thing about the form that I really love is because it alternates
between this lyric mode and it's a prose poem.
You feel these two movements, the pilgrimage is the horizontal mode,
you feel through the march sideways, horizontally across this landscape.
And then there's the spiritual vertical mode and they're intersecting all the way
through in a way that seems profoundly functional.
>> Prisma.
Ansias de bienestar, las vi recorrer el camino de costumbre,
el que va de la ciudad a alguna parte, parte del mundo, parte de mi adolorida humanidad,
grata aparición para quien me aguarda, quien vive dentro de mi sin ser yo misma, en mi sed,
mis oscilantes momentos de tribulación y paz.
Fui ellas.
Me fui. Suben a Chalma los peregrinos.
Los que saben que la rama seca que van cargando echará flores a lo largo del trayecto.
Son jóvenes en su mayoría.
Llevan agua, un petate en que dormir y la cotidianidad de sus vidas a la vista.
Hay viejos también.
Niños sobre los hombros.
El santuario avanza en busca de su sitio.
De golpe, con una pregunta despertó su antigüedad.
¿Qué le piden al Señor a quien veneran, es decir,
a su cuerpo mortificado por la fatiga de hoy y la miseria de ayer?
Poder seguir llorando de rabia o de impotencia, poder enfermarse más o excederse,
poder presenciar, vivir la aterradora falta de, al centro del cuerno de la abundancia,
poder olvidar, sí, al fantasma de los siete,
ocho años que arrebatado vuela sin cola o cuerda que lo regrese a tierra,
olvidar la futura historia, las nulas entregas amorosas.
¿Eso? Oh, cuerpo, amo y Señor, muéstrame un árbol creado a imagen tuya, sinagogas,
basílicas, mezquitas cubiertas todas de ti siendo.
Se ha establecido el campamento.
Es de noche.
Grupos de hombres por aquí, mixtos por allá, de mujeres con bebés y niños más lejos.
En torno a las fogatas, de pie, en cuclillas.
Comparten no el alimento ni el café , cada quien trae su itacate,
sino la razón de y la celebran sentándose en el suelo vil,
dejando que las piedras se les entierren en los muslos,
dando de mamar al niño delante de quien sea.
El calor proviene de la cercanía de brazos, espaldas, cuellos,
senos; no del fuego, de la sangre.
Hay quien cae dormido, quien cabecea, quien vela.
Ninguna necesidad de techo.
Todos estamos destinados al compás respiratorio con que cantan las estrellas.
Comunión de astros es ésa, recé con terror o envidia, una cierta rotación,
una cierta traslación, el gozo de lo indispensable.
Nada más.
Al día siguiente, llena de admiración y arrobo, regresé a esos lugares,
deseando aspirar los últimos olores de lo que ahí se había soñado y compartido.
Como quien vuelve a tocar la piedra votiva,
los pies o las manos de la imagen gastada de algún santo milagroso.
No hallé sino basura, la gran boca del Señor, su mal aliento.
>> Prism. Those coveting health.
I saw them making their way along the worn path, the one trailing away from the city,
a part of the world, a part of my own wounded humanity, a sweet apparition
for whomever awaits me, living within but apart from me, in my thirst,
in my shifting moments of trouble and peace.
I was them.
I was myself.
They ascend toward Chalma, the pilgrims.
Knowing that, on the way, their dry branch will break into blossom.
Most are young.
They carry water, a sleeping pallet, their daily lives.
A few elders.
Children on their shoulders.
The sanctuary in search of its premises.
At once, with a single question, their old age woke up in them.
For what do they petition the Lord they worship, a Lord whose body is mortified
by today's exhaustion and yesterday's misery?
To be able to go on crying in fury or impotence, to be able to sicken or go beyond sickness,
to be able to testify to, to endure the terrifying absence of at the very core
of the horn of plenty, to be able to forget, yes,
the seven or eight year old ghost impetuously flying without tail or string
by which it might be tugged back to earth, to forget the future history,
the missing relinquishments to love.
That? Oh, body, Lord and Master, show me a tree made in your image, synagogues, shrines,
mosques, filled out with your being.
They've made camp.
Night. Groups of men over here, mixed groups over there,
women with babies and children farther off.
Around the campfires, standing, squatting.
They share neither food nor coffee, each bringing out their own dinner,
without making excuse for and celebrating by sitting on the hard ground,
the rocks bruise their thighs, nursing the baby in front of strangers.
The warmth whelms from the nearness of arms, backs, necks, breasts; not from fire.
From blood.
There are those falling asleep, those about to, and those keeping vigil.
None needs a roof.
All our fates are measured out as breath in the songs of stars.
A communion of luminous bodies, I prayed in terror or envy, a particular sequence,
a particular translation, the joy of the indispensable.
Nothing more.
The next morning, full of admiration and rapture, I returned to those places,
hoping to breathe in the last smells of what had been dreamt and shared.
Going back as though to touch the votive stone,
the feet or hands of the worn image of some miraculous saint.
I found nothing but garbage.
The Lord's mouth agape, his stinking breath.