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 Coral Bracho was born in Mexico City in 1951. She is the author of eight books of poetry, including Peces de piel fugaz [Fish of Fleeting Skin] (1977), El ser que va a morir [The Being that is Going to Die] (1981), Tierra de entraña ardiente [Earth of Burning Entrails] (in collaboration with the painter Irma Palacios, 1992), La voluntad del ámbar [The Will of Amber] (1998), Ese espacio, ese jardín [That Space, That Garden] (2003), which was awarded the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 2004. Among her many grants and prizes are the Aguascalientes Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bomb, Conjunctions, The Nation, and Poetry International. Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho, translated by Forrest Gander, was released by New Directions in 2008.
Poems written by Coral Bracho and translated by Forrest Gander. Reprinted with permission from Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems, Spanish. New Directions, 2008.
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Spanish version
Los ríos encrespan un follaje de calma
Tu voz (en tu cuerpo los ríos encrespan
un follaje de calma; aguas graves y cadenciosas).
--Desde esta puerta, los goces, sus umbrales;
desde este cerco, se transfiguran--
En tus bosques de arena líquida,
de jade pálido y denso (agua profunda, hendida;
esta puerta labrada en las naves del alba). Me entorno a tu
vertiente-- Agua
que se adhiere a la luz (en tu cuerpo los ríos se funden,
solidifican
entre las ceibas salitrosas. Llama --puerta de visos ígneos--
que me circundas y trasudas: sobre este vidrio, bajo estos
valles esponjados, entre esta manta, esta piel
English version
The Rivers Churn Up a Tranquil Foliage
Your voice (in your body rivers stir
a tranquil foliage; grave and cadenced waters).
--From this door, the pleasures, their thresholds;
from this ring, they’re transfigured—
In your forests of liquid sand,
of dense, pale jade (deep water, cleaved;
this door carved into the naves of dawn). I’m unsettled
in your cascade—Water
clinging to the light (at your body the rivers merge, hardening
between nitrous ceiba trees. Flame—door of igneous glimmer—
you circle and sweat me out: over this glaze, under those spongy valleys,
between this mantle, this flesh
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Spanish version
Dame, tierra, tu noche
En tus aguas profundas
en su quietud
de jade, acógeme, tierra espectral.
Tierra de silencios
y brillos,
de sueños breves como constelaciones,
como vetas de sol
en un ojo de tigre. Dame tu oscuro rostro,
tu tiempo terso para cubrirme,
tu suave voz. Con trazos finos
hablaría.
Con arenas de cuarzo trazaría este rumor,
este venero entre cristales.
Dame tu noche;
el ígneo gesto de tu noche
para entrever.
Dame tu abismo y tu negro espejo.
Hondos parajes se abren
como fruto estelar, como universos
de amatista bajo la luz. Dame su ardor,
dame su cielo efímero,
su verde oculto: algún sendero
se abrirá para mi, algún matiz
entre sus costas de agua.
Entre tus bosques de tiniebla,
tierra, dame el silencio y la ebriedad;
dame la oblea del tiempo; la brasa tenue
y azorada del tiempo; su exultante
raíz; su fuego, el eco
bajo el ahondado laberinto. Dame
tu soledad.
Y en ella,
bajo tu celo de obsidiana,
desde tus muros, y antes del nuevo día,
dame en una grieta el umbral
y su esplendor furtivo.
English version
Give me, earth, your night
In your fathomless waters,
in its jade
quietude, welcome me, spectral earth.
Earth of silences
and scintillations,
of dreams quick as constellations,
like filaments of sun
in a tiger’s eye. Give me your dark face,
your clear time to cover me,
your soft voice. In fine strokes
I speak.
With quartz sand I draw out this murmuring,
this spring bordered by crystals.
Give me your night;
the igneous expression of your night
so I might begin to see.
Give me your abyss and your black mirror.
The depths open up
like star fruit, like universes
of amethyst under the light. Give me their ardor,
give me their ephemeral sky,
their occult green: some path
will clear for me, some tinge
in the coastal waters.
Among your tenebrous forests,
earth, give me silence and intoxication;
give me a wafer of time; the flickering
and flaking ember of time; its exultant
core; its fire, the echo
under the deepened labyrinth. Give me
your solitude.
And in it,
beneath your obsidian fervor,
from your walls, and before the breaking day,
give me, in a crevice, the threshold
and its furtive flamboyance.
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Spanish version
Cuando alguien entra en un cuarto
Cuando alguien entra en un cuarto
reemplaza el tiempo, la trama,
de su red de incidencias. Cada mínimo
rasgo, cada gesto,
cada espacio mental y su sensación,
filtran su habitado contexto, elastico
interponerse,
propiciar.
Innumerables concreciones posibles
despiertan,
desencadenan. –Todas coinciden
y se afectan:
La piedra
que va a caer
cambia el pozo
y el agua
que inexorablemente, en su descenso,
la alteran.
Todos entran al cuarto,
todos lo observan.
English version
When Someone Enters a Room
When someone enters a room,
time and plot shift
in their web of occasion. Each minimal
aspect, each gesture,
each mental space and its sensation
filters the lived context, elastic
intercession,
inclination.
Innumerable possible concretions
awake,
shake loose. –All of it conjoins
and fills with feeling:
The rock
about to fall
alters the well
and the water
that inexorably, as it drops,
alters it.
Everyone enters the room,
everyone takes it in.
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Spanish version
En los valles despiertos
Tus caricias,
sus caudales desatan esta flama, este viento,
abren con sus luces los campos, los despliegan,
los bañan. Las aves rompen el vuelo.
Sus alas, claros cristales,
sus picos suaves y finos, rasgan y dibujan
--en la yerba; en los valles despiertos
que recorren y habitan-- paisajes ígneos,
higueras, flores de savias vivas y luminosas,
páramos,
brotes de arena espesa, yermos que la sed,
lenta noche de sal, que el deseo
regeneran: Los ciervos cruzan por los linderos.
English version
In the Roused Valleys
Forest stream. “Your palms are red from raspberries,
rinse them.” Water so clear, I’m reluctant
to stain it with even the sweetest juice.
“It’ll do no harm. The water here is eternally clear,
because she swam here. She, who plants flowers
on abandoned graves and gathers up
forgotten songs.” Have you seen her?
“No, but the water is eternally clear. Rinse your hands.”
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Spanish version
Turbulenta su fluida calma
Centro,
volcado fuego este mar
que nos abre, nos acoge.
Su suave
alud.
Vasta, profunda transparencia, inundándonos
su encendido metal; turbulenta
su fluida calma.
Áurea corriente desasida, ebrio caudal –Sentido
su envolvente espesor como una exacta ligereza:
Con levedad de nieve
baja
la gaviota a las rocas.
Con irrupción de viento se alza
entre el oleaje
su abierto sol. Como un acorde que se enreda, que se desteje
en un oscuro jardín:
Lazos que alumbran y desatan;
lindes que disuelve y transluce
su filtrada amplitud; tramas que anudan
y despejan en sombras su urdida llama. Cifrado,
vertido cauce. Toca
el borde del agua
la arena ardiente,
deja su huella breve, su ahondada sed.
–Y esta piedra que imanta la quietud de la noche,
que nos arrastra y nos guía por ella. Astro. Impulso que irradia,
que concentra.
Que sostenemos entre las manos como un confín.
Como un ceñido amuleto.
–Saber que engendra
y su vertido incendio:
Ciervo que funda la maleza. Sol
que genera y trama la oscuridad.
Rastro,
nocturna luz que nos crea y nos decanta; que nos confunde
y nos sostiene. Que orilla a ver.
English version
Its Fluid Calm, Turbulent
Center,
spilled fire,
this sea that opens us, takes us in.
Its easy
torrent.
Vast, complete transparency, its inflamed metal
inundating us; its fluid calm,
turbulent.
Aureate current unloosed, intoxicated --Sensed
its swathing density very like a lightness:
With the weightlessness of snow
it alights,
the gull on the rocks.
Like an irrupting wind it lifts
over the swell
its open sun.
Like a tune unraveling, spooling out
into a dark garden:
Knots that glow and come undone;
limits that dissolve and transluce
a filtered amplitude; threads that tie up
and tease out into shadows a woven flame. Ciphered,
spilled cadence. Touching
the water’s edge,
the burning sand
leaves its brief mark, its bottomless thirst.
And this rock magnetized by the night’s quiet
which leads us forward and guides us through it. Star. Impulse that radiates,
concentrates.
That we bear in our hands like a realm.
Like a close-fitting amulet.
--Knowing which conceives
and its spilled blaze:
Stag that inaugurates the thicket. Sun
that engenders and interlaces the darkness.
Vestige,
nocturnal light that delineates and decants us; that bewilders
and sustains us. That verges on vision.
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