The next poem I'm going to read is called "Los Caracoles."
"Snails."
This was a poem written in memory of a woman,
a neighbor of mine, a French woman,
when I was a very small child.
She would give us buckets, plastic buckets
to collect snails from her garden,
and she would give us $0.05 for each snail.
And she died.
She went on a weekend trip.
She drowned.
And so this poem is dedicated to her.
It's also a poem about earning money, right?
[LAUGHTER]
"Los Caracoles."
"Los caracoles, cosas de flor, de luz y de seda de sol"
Rubén Darío.
En ese jardín restituido al mundo por la cuadrícula de
verde y vereda hacia el recodo brumoso de la flor y su ángulo
más violeta entre las hebras del sauce y las trizas de humo
colgadas de oyamel, oí el guijarro en la sílaba y tras
rumor vi la súbita alquimia de un diamante en la corteza,
cuando ella, la señora del sendero,
la extranjera de escarpín y blanco encaje,
dijo escargot con la espiral de una concha restringida entre el
pulgar y el índice.
Lo dijo mirando la cubeta llena.
Mi limpia pizca de caracoles.
Mi visión de moluscos en la maleza.
Mi sueño redondo de plata.
Dijo el nombre ese día y los rastros de una perla se
esfumaron en los hoyos de la hoja,
mientras pasaba el tiempo entre su peineta y el cielo.
Entre el cabello y la nube, como una voz rodada por el viento y
la piedra.
Y los caracoles a destajo en la figura plástica del círculo.
Lentos con su infierno de pasto y mar,
iban fraguando el molde de mi codicia ya nunca resuelta.
Porque esa cosa tan callada, la muerte negra de ella el sábado
siguiente, era una vorágine de plantas y agua nocturna.
Vino larga en mi domingo cuando el tintineo de las monedas en
mis bolsillos resonó durante horas como el golpe de su cara
contra la rivera.
Y para siempre, desde entonces, mi primera pérdida se fijó
a cambio de una ganancia.
"Snails.
Things of flowers of life, and of the sunset."
Rubén Darío.
"In that garden, restored to the world
by the grade of green paths toward the misty bend
of the flower at its most violent angle
from the little strands, and the tatters of smoke
hanging from a fir tree.
I heard the pebble in the syllable,
and behind that murmur I saw the sudden alchemy of a diamond
in the bark, which she, the lady at the path, the foreigner
in pumps and white lace, said escargot,
with the spiral of a shell held between thumb and index finger.
She said it looking at the whole bucket, my clean catch
of snails, my vision of mollusks in the weeds, my round silver
dream.
She said the name that day, and the traces of the pearl
faded away in the holes of the leaf,
while time passed between the crows and the heavens,
between her hair and the clouds.
Like a voice made smooth by wind on rocks.
And the snails, restless in the plastic circle,
slow in their hell of grass and sticks,
began forging the mold of my covetousness,
never to be absolved.
Because that quiet thing, her Black Death
the following Saturday, in the maelstrom
of plants and nocturnal water, seemed so long on my Sunday.
When the jingle of coins in my pockets
resounded for hours with the shock of her face
against the river bank.
And since then, forever, my first loss
was sealed in exchange for a gain."