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 Pura López-Colomé was born in Mexico City in 1952, but also spent part of her childhood and youth in Mérida, Yucatan, and attended high school in the USA. She studied literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, publishing literary criticism, poems, and translations in a regular column for the newspaper Unomásuno. The author of several important books, including El sueño del cazador, Aurora, Intemperie, as well as a Collected Poems Música inaudita (Eds. Verdehalago, 2004), she is also the translator into Spanish of works by Samuel Beckett, H.D., Seamus Heaney, William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein, Robert Hass, Robert Creeley and others. A Selected Poems, titled No Shelter, was published in Forrest Gander's translation by Graywolf Press in 2002. Jason Stumpf has published a translation of Aurora (Shearsman Editions, 2008).
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Spanish version
Celda
Insistes
en mover montañas
bajo el manto
y a las faldas
de una opacidad
franqueable
ni por equivocación,
donde nadie se asoma,
donde la magnolia se ofrece
y además huele
de modo tal que
lo que se abra sean
candados de poros y párpados
y se escuche entonces
algo propio,
un alarido,
una llama
tras los biombos.
De Santo y seña (México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007).
English version
Cell
You insist
on moving mountains
under the mantle
and to the skirts
of an opacity
not surmountable
by equivocation,
by which no one appears,
by which the magnolia offers itself
and also gives off
so much scent that
padlocks of pores and eyelids
are opened
and something peculiar
comes clear,
a howl,
a blaze
behind the screen.
Reprinted with permission by López Colomé, Pura “Celda” from Santo y Seña/ Watchword.
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Spanish version
Atormentada
Caían enormes sólidos
desde no sé qué alturas,
no sé qué lugares.
Temblaba,
y en la boca
un sabor a tinta. En su punto.
Granizo, quizás,
granos de hielo enormes;
su descenso,
aquel impacto escandaloso,
no me enterró, aterrada,
entre las cobijas.
No fue, no era eso.
Una temperatura bajo cero
circulaba por el centro tierno de mis huesos.
Un verdadero calor frío.
Nada de monstruos a la vista.
Nada de distancias interminables.
Nada de acontecimientos brutales.
Sólo una tormenta de bellotas.
Sólo un ciclo que se cumple
cada cierto número de años
y torna al bosque tropical
un encinar en coro.
Es el miedo.
English version
Tormented
Enormous solids were falling
from who knows what heights,
who knows what places.
I trembled,
and in my mouth
an inky taste. Precise.
Hail, maybe,
enormous kernels of ice;
coming down,
with a scandalous impact,
didn’t bury me, terrorized,
under the covers.
It didn’t happen, it wasn’t that.
A below zero temperature
circulated through the soft center of my bones.
A truly searing cold.
Nothing having to do with monsters came to pass.
Nothing to do with interminable distances.
Nothing to do with brutal incidents.
Only the agony of acorns.
Only a cycle that completes itself
every few years
and transforms into a tropical forest
a choiring oak grove.
Which is the fear.
Reprinted with permission from Pura López Colomé, “Atormentada” from Santo y Seña/ Watchword.
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Spanish version
Fábula disuelta, ensimismada
A Mil y Canga, por nuestro ningún lado
Poder decir
sin puntuación
momento júbilo infinito
júbilo infinito momento
infinito momento júbilo
algarabía
y por si fuera poco
arde y canta
solipsista
sin que nadie
más que la propia
extraña entraña
ajena al mundo
la comparta
Poder decir
sin artilugios,
filigranas,
subrayados o cursivas
supremo instante
de gozo sin orillas
al centro de una inmensidad
sin apremio de auxilio alguno
a sabiendas de que las fuerzas
escapan ligeras del músculo
y se van volando
y uno hundiendo
y no importa
pues se está a buen resguardo
ensimismado
Poder decir
decirlo
decírselo
uno
a uno
de consuno
Poder decir
una tarde esplendorosa
recién lavadas estiradas tendidas
las nubes
entre azul
y buenas noches
avanzando a buen paso
por un camino recorrido
innumerables veces
como si fuera la primera
o la única
como una y única esta bóveda
como esta tierra andada en redondez
completa
vamos cantando
la misma canción de siempre
cantada innumerables veces
como si fuera la primera
la única
Poder decir
una tarde de una vida
en que ustedes
absortos en la música
se ingieren
se devoran
se beben a sorbitos
porque cada nota
es un espejo
maravillosamente único
sagradamente
cóncavo y convexo
y por fortuna
imperceptible
Poder decir
una vida en una tarde
en que conduzco
este mi funicular
desde la casualidad
hasta el destino
me deja alcanzarlos
e ingerirlos
embebidos en sí mismos
cantando los tres
los tres cantando
Poder decir
a un lado dan sus tonos
orquestados afinados
oyameles encinos
en fortísimo contraste
con la coloratura purpurina
de jacarandas jacarandas jacarandas
y al otro
entre teatrales y líricos
tabachines llamaradas bugambilias
flor de mayo anticipada o retrasada
y a través del parabrisas
el cristal trasero
y los espejos laterales
las copas amplias
alvéolos esponjados
entretelas de nuestro personal espacio abstracto
en robles cedros y más que aromáticos abetos
desde las profundidades
del alinde
emerge
la nota baja
entrecortada
finamente
por una voz quebrada
plumas multicolores que desde ella ascienden
en aras y alas de una lírica
que me define
a las afueras
de pies a cabeza
genio y figura
del sonido
poder decir
por decir algo
poder decir
English version
Dehiscent, Enraptured Invention
To Mil and Canga
For our nowhere land
To be able to speak
without punctuation
jubilant infinite moment
moment jubilant infinite
infinite moment jubilant
gibberish
and as if that weren’t enough
burn and sing
a solipsist
heard by no one
but the weird world’s
distant core
To be able to speak
without contrivance,
filigrees,
underlinings or cursives
supreme instant
of unbounded pleasure
at the center of an immensity
without any outside pressure
knowing full well that vital forces
peel away from the muscle easily
and drift off
and one drowns
and it doesn’t matter
that one is protected
enraptured
To be able to speak
to speak it
to speak it to them
one
to oneself
consubstantial
To be able to speak
a splendid afternoon
the clouds
freshly rinsed stirred tended
between blue
and goodnight
coming to a good end
along a road taken
innumerable times
as if it were the first
or the only
as this firmament is single and singular
as this earth has been walked
all the way around
we go on singing
always the same song
sung innumerable times
as if it were the first
the only
To be able to speak
an afternoon in a life
in which
absorbed in the music
you are swallowed
are devoured
are gulped down
because each note
is a mirror
marvelously singular
sacredly
concave and convex
and fortunately
imperceptible
To be able to speak
an afternoon of a life,
in which I drive
this my funicular
from chance
to destiny,
it lets me reach them
and drink them in
drunk on themselves
singing all three of us
the three of us singing
To be able to speak
the tones on one side
are orchestrated arranged
by pine-trees oaks
in a fortissimo contrasting
with the glittering coloratura
of jacarandas jacarandas jacarandas
and on the other
among theaters and lyrics
tabachines trumpet-vines bougainvilleas
early or late mayflowers
and through the windshield
the rear glass
and the side windows
the full treetops
spongy alveoli
the pleats of our personally abstract space
rendered as oaks cedars and super-aromatic firs
from the depths
of the reflecting glass
emerges
the low note
finely
parsed
by a broken voice
from which multicolored feathers rise
in the rush of a lyricism
which defines me
to a T,
head to foot
spirit and form
of sound
to be able to speak
so to speak
able to speak
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Spanish version
Níveas cataratas del Niágara
Primera escala
Tu tarjeta postal
cristalizada
por un tangible arco en el iris.
Si se trataba de una fotografía,
¿estarías observando desde el quinto cielo?
Desde el balcón de tu único
y verdadero
viaje,
tu poder de reflexión
en la punta de una pluma:
el vocativo
me haría ver mi suerte:
Purita.
Comenzaba a provocarte
lo que hoy exhala frente a mí
una criatura semejante,
un prójimo.
Lo veo venir caminando de la escuela
con la carga de sus relaciones incompletas,
frías o no, da igual, en un país suyo y ajeno.
Con el esfuerzo entre dientes
de una lengua que mucho significa
y placer causa,
añadiendo carretadas de escarcha al equipaje.
De quien merece reverencias
por proceder de una madeja eslava
que se desenreda en pos de un delta
mozáraba, ligur y castellano.
Alabanzas.
Segunda escala
Paso la mano por la banca del parque
cubierta de nieve
para congelar la remembranza,
a ti y a mí
en la plaza
donde todos los seres queridos
conversan
plácidamente
entre delicias
de una tarde yucateca,
escuchando los llamados de la alondra
cuyas patas, al alzarse,
hunden las de aquel asiento
hondo,
hondo en lo que se sabe
terruño.
Aquí cerca, ironías de la vida,
vino a quedar aquel otro, hecho de losa
y ladrillo. Helo ahí,
espera y aguarda, en calidad de muerto
que sobrevive
otoños,
hojas que más tardan en adornar
que en descomponerse.
Tercera escala
Embrocada en el barandal
de mi infantil palacio
te reconozco
en franco descenso por las cataratas
queriendo pintarlas,
haciéndome con ello
tu eterna hospes,
entregándote de lleno
a la mayor de las virtudes griegas.
Y luego, ya sentada junto a ti bajo ese chorro de agua,
mi sueño dorado,
o en la banca talismán, me pregunto
quién es visitante, quién forastero,
quién extranjero,
la hierba, las ortigas o el verdor del páramo
que se esconde y se asoma, vuelve.
O los charcos congelados donde las urracas
taladran en busca del tesoro
de un perpetuo camino de ida.
Que es ilusión de que
un buen día
las cosas cambien.
Cuarta y última
Qué duro
el rostro de la vejez,
ese instante en que ya nada es nada
e inexorable la pasión abisma.
Mejor despertar en cualquier otro panorama
y decir: qué mañana.
Con todo y arco iris.
Con todo y parque.
Con todo y despedidas:
Te quiere mucho,
Tu mamá.
La octava maravilla,
merced
a la tercera persona
espíritu santo
del singular.
English version
Niagara’s Snowy Cascades
First scale
The image on your postcard
affixed itself
below the rainbow of my iris.
If it was meant to be a photograph,
were you looking down from the fifth heaven?
From the balcony of your
singular and uncompromising
journey,
you concentrated your power of reflection
into the point of a quill pen:
the vocative
brings out the charm of my name:
Purita.
I began to show you
what the day exhales before me:
a likesame creature,
another being.
I see him walking home from school
hauling his unsettled affairs,
shivering or not, no matter, in a country both his and alien.
With the skillful relish of a tongue
navigating teeth to release its plenty
of meaning and pleasure,
with frost adding to the weight of his bags.
He who merits such reverence,
starting as he did with a Slavic snarl
teased out from a delta of
Mozarabic, Ligurian, and Castillian.
Bless the boy.
Second scale
I pass my hand over the park’s snow-
covered bench
in order to fix the remembrance
of you and of me
in the plaza
where those dear to us
quietly talk
surrounded
by the sensations
of a Yucatan afternoon
pierced by the calls of a skylark
whose feet, when it lands,
screw it down,
down into that stratum
it knows as its native
soil.
Near here, another of life’s ironies,
a second bench was placed, made of flagstone
and brick. To wit: here it is,
waiting and watching, serene as the dead
who outlive
autumn,
the leaves that color more slowly
than they decay.
Third scale
Barricaded behind the banister
of my childhood palace,
I recognize you
as I plunge straight down the cascades
wanting only to paint them,
making me, thereby,
your eternal hospes,
yielding you fully
to the greatest of Greek virtues.
And later, seated with you under that rush of water,
my golden dream—
or on the talismanic bench, wondering
who is the visitor, who the outsider,
who the stranger,
the weeds, the nettles or the green of the moor
which recedes and emerges, returning.
Or the frozen puddles where magpies
drill, searching for plunder
on an endless one-way road—
Which is an illusion that
one fine day
things might change.
Fourth and last
How unbearable
the face of old age,
that moment in which nothing works
and, inexorably, passion goes blank.
Better to wake up anywhere else
and say, What a morning.
With its own rainbow.
With its own park.
With its own farewells:
With her love, as always,
Your mother.
The eighth wonder,
rendered
in third person,
the holy ghost
of the singular.
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