ZP Guest Editor Mildred K. Barya:

What Beverley Nambozo (Uganda) and Sylvia Plath (USA) have in common

My first poet is Beverley Nambozo, and the poem I’m focusing on is “At the graveyard.”

Beverley Nambozo

“At the graveyard”

.

At the graveyard I sit on my father’s lap.
Where we can talk.
Of what could have been but was not.
Here he has many friends,
Even his mother-in-law brings him flowers.

Now I understand why he has to write.
It keeps him alive.

We saved him by killing him.
Because now he writes.
He recited a poem for me
And my mother discovered my frozen tears
on my father’s stone.

.     .     .

What I like most is the balance between light and dark that comes from this poem. There’s a sense of grief and regret mixed with joy and comfort. The sadness comes from what could have been but was not, and the liberating feeling in ‘sitting on his lap so they can talk.’ I find that magical and refreshing. The father continues to be a father in this regard. He is not completely gone, and he is loved—the idea that even his mother-in-law brings him flowers. How punchy, precise and economical! In the old African culture, mothers-in-law are complicated beings whose relationships with their sons-in-law are often devoid of affection or open expression.

Beverley also does that cool thing of referencing Sylvia Plath without sounding banal. In Plath’s “Daddy” poem, her 2^nd stanza begins in the direct, individual voice: Daddy, I have had to kill you. Beverley says in the collective, beginning of 3^rd stanza: We saved him by killing him. I find this connection sweet and pleasant, especially when I realize that Beverley’s title could have been Daddy, but she lets the subject matter resolve that.

In Plath’s poem, we find the reason she’s had to “kill her Daddy.” She tried resurrecting him first: 4^th line of the 3^rd stanza: I used to pray to recover you. When that failed, she tried joining him. 12^th stanza: At twenty I tried to die/And get back, back, back to you/I thought even the bones would do. For a long time she couldn’t accept the loss. So deep and long was her grieving. Bit my pretty red heart in two/I was ten when they buried you.

Beverley “saves her Daddy” by acknowledging that he’s alive – even in death. He now writes, and whenever she needs to talk with him she only has to visit, and hear him recite her a poem. It’s also her Daddy’s way of staying alive, so the goal is mutual and the action liberating for both daughter and father.

I like how these two poems deal with the loss of a father and grieve in a close but contrasting manner. So related they are, but with a twist in perspective. In order to heal and move on, the two poets find peace through poetry. One lets go through visions of the most dark form and then, severing the bond, so to speak, the other by imagining Daddy in the most friendly images: friends, flowers, and then reunion.

See Sylvia’s end stanza:

There’s a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

And Beverley’s 4^th line of her first stanza: “Here he has many friends”.

The two poems/poets belong to different traditions—African versus American—but are much alike in their approach. Writing is their saving grace. Their differences are also interesting; what and how they write based on their feelings and experiences.

One of the joys of reading poetry is when you come across one poem/poet that reminds you of another. It’s like hearing the echo that merges time, people, and places, connecting across centuries and generations.

.     .     .

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

“Daddy” (1962)

.

You do not do, you do not do

Any more, black shoe

In which I have lived like a foot

For thirty years, poor and white,

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.

You died before I had time——

Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,

Ghastly statue with one gray toe

Big as a Frisco seal

.

And a head in the freakish Atlantic

Where it pours bean green over blue

In the waters off beautiful Nauset.

I used to pray to recover you.

Ach, du.

.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town

Scraped flat by the roller

Of wars, wars, wars.

But the name of the town is common.

My Polack friend

.

Says there are a dozen or two.

So I never could tell where you

Put your foot, your root,

I never could talk to you.

The tongue stuck in my jaw.

.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.

And the language obscene

.

An engine, an engine

Chuffing me off like a Jew.

A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.

I began to talk like a Jew.

I think I may well be a Jew.

.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

Are not very pure or true.

With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck

And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

I may be a bit of a Jew.

.

I have always been scared of you,

With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.

And your neat mustache

And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——

.

Not God but a swastika

So black no sky could squeak through.

Every woman adores a Fascist,

The boot in the face, the brute

Brute heart of a brute like you.

.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,

In the picture I have of you,

A cleft in your chin instead of your foot

But no less a devil for that, no not

Any less the black man who

.

Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when they buried you.

At twenty I tried to die

And get back, back, back to you.

I thought even the bones would do.

.

But they pulled me out of the sack,

And they stuck me together with glue.

And then I knew what to do.

I made a model of you,

A man in black with a Meinkampf look

.

And a love of the rack and the screw.

And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I’m finally through.

The black telephone’s off at the root,

The voices just can’t worm through.

.

If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——

The vampire who said he was you

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.

.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

.     .     .

Mildred K. Barya is a Ugandan author of three poetry collections: Give Me Room to Move My Feet, The Price of Memory after the Tsunami, and Men Love Chocolates But They Don’t Say. She has also published short stories in various anthologies and taught creative writing at Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. She is a board member of African Writers Trust, and she blogs at: http://mildredbarya.com/

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Beverley Nambozo‘s “At the graveyard”: from her poetry collection, Unjumping, published by Erbacce-press, U.K., 2010

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Sylvia Plath‘s “Daddy”: from Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems, © 1965 / 1981, The Estate of Sylvia Plath

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Pastor Macaulay leading a House of Rainbow gathering of conversation and loving prayer

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Rowland Jide Macaulay (born 1966) is an openly gay Nigerian poet and pastor who – as of tomorrow (June 30^th 2013) will also be an ordained preacher in The Church of England. He begins duties as a curate in London this July and says that his will be “an inclusive parish ministry – and I cannot wait!”

Macaulay’s involvement in church activity has deep roots. He was raised Pentecostal in Lagos, where his father, Professor Augustus Kunle Macaulay, is the principal of Nigeria’s United Bible University.

But the truth of his sexuality needed telling and Rowland reached a juncture in the spiritual road, founding House of Rainbow Fellowship which gives pastoral care to sexual minorities in Nigeria, and includes sister fellowships in Ghana, Lesotho and several other African states.

The Easter story holds great power for Macaulay; the following is a poem he wrote in 1999:

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Rowland Jide Macaulay

“In Just Three Days”

.
For a life time
He came that we may have life
He died that we may have life in abundance.

In Just Three Days
Better known than ever before
Crowned King of kings
Tired but never gave up
Alone, forsaken and frightened
The world is coming to a close
Doors closing, wall to wall thickening.

In Just Three Days
Prophecies have been fulfilled
Unto us a child is born…
Destroy the world and build the kingdom
Followers deny His existence
His betrayer will accompany the enemy.

In Just Three Days
The world had Him and lost Him
Chaos in the enemies’ camp
Death could not hold Him prisoner
In the grave, Jesus is Lord.

Bethany, the house of Simon the leper,
Alabaster box of precious oil
Ointment for my body
Gethsemane, place of my refuge
Watch and pray.

In Just Three Days
Destruction, Rebuilding
Chastisement, Loving, Caring
Killing, Survival
Mockery, Praises
Passover, Betrayal
The people, The high priest
Crucify him, crown of thorns
Hail him, Strip him, bury him.

In Just Three Days
He is risen
Come and see the place where the Lord lay
His arrival in the clouds of heaven.

In Just Three Days
He was dead and buried
My resurrection, my hope, my dream
Hopelessness, helplessness turned around
In Just Three Days
In Just Three Days.

.     .     .   

Nigerian Abayomi Animashaun, now living in the U.S.A., completed a university degree in mathematics and chemistry but then took that precise quantum leap into the ever-expanding universe that is Poetry. He teaches at The University of Wisconsin (Oshkosh).

The following poem is from his 2008 collection, The Giving of Pears.

.

Abayomi Animashaun

“In bed with Cavafy”

.

After pleasing each other,
We laid in bed a long time…

Curtains drawn,
Bolt fastened,

We’d been cautious,

Had made a show for others—

We ordered meat and wine
From the local restaurant.

And, like other guys, we talked loud
About politics into the night,

But whispered about young men
We’d bent in the dark.

At midnight, when from the bars drunks
Staggered onto the streets,

We shook hands the way they did,
Laughed their prolonged laughs,

And warned each other to steer clear
From loose girls and diseases—

All the while knowing
He’ll circle round as planned,

Sit in the unused shack behind my house
Till my neighbours’ candles are blown out.

And, after his soft knock,

I’ll slowly release the latch

– As I did last night.

.     .     .

Editor’s note: “In bed with Cavafy” captures the mood, nuance, and subtle tone of the poetic voice of Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), the homosexual Greek poet who was a native of Alexandria, Egypt. Animashaun updates this Cavafy-an “voice”, making it heard in his description of two bisexual lovers in Lagos who are caught up in strategies of social hypocrisy and secret honesty in a place where sexual open-ness means great personal risk.

.

Special Thanks to Duane Taylor (York University, Toronto) for his editorial assistance!

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Pat Parker in 1989_photograph © Robert Giard

Pat Parker

“Sunshine”

.

If it were possible

to place you in my brain

to let you roam around

in and out

my thought waves

you would never

have to ask

why do you love me?

.

This morning as you slept

I wanted to kiss you awake

say I love you till your brain

smiled and nodded yes

this woman does love me.

.

Each day the list grows

filled with the things that are you

things that make my heart jump

yet words would sound strange

become corny in utterance.

.

In the morning when I wake

I don’t look out my window

to see if the sun is shining.

I turn to you instead.

.     .     .

“I have”

.

i have known

many women

and the you of you

puzzles me.

.

it is not beauty

i have known

beautiful women.

.

it is not brains

i have known

intelligent women.

.

it is not goodness

i have known

good women.

.

it is not selflessness

i have known

giving women.

.

yet you touch me

in new

different

ways.

.

i become sand

on a beach

washed anew with

each wave of you.

.

with each touch of you

i am fresh bread

warm and rising.

.

i become a newborn kitten

ready to be licked

and nuzzled into life.

.

you are my last love

and my first love

you make me a virgin

and I want to give myself to you.

.     .     .

“Sublimation”

.

It has been said that

sleep is a short death.

I watch you, still,

your breath moving –

soft summer breeze.

Your face is velvet

the tension of our love,

gone.

No, false death is not here

in our bed

just you – asleep

and me – wanting

to make love to you,

writing words instead.

.     .     .

“Metamorphosis”

.

you take these fingers

bid them soft

a velvet touch

to your loins

.

you take these arms

bid them pliant

a warm cocoon

to shield you

.

you take this shell

bid it full

a sensual cup

to lay with you

.

you take this voice

bid it sing

an uncaged bird

to warble your praise

.

you take me, love,

a sea skeleton

fill me with you

and I become

pregnant with love

give birth

to revolution.

.     .     .

“For Willyce”

.

When i make love to you

i try

with each stroke of my tongue

to say

i love you

to tease

i love you

to hammer

i love you

to melt

i love you

and your sounds drift down

oh god!

oh jesus!

and i think

here it is, some dude’s

getting credit for what

a woman

has done

again.

.     .     .

Pat Parker (1944-1989) was a Black-American lesbian and feminist.  She was born in Houston, Texas, and lived and worked (at a women’s health centre) in Oakland, California, from 1978 almost up until her death from breast cancer. Racism, misogyny, homophobia – Parker “kept it real” about such facts at numerous poetry readings throughout the 1970s.  She had had two marriages – and raised two children from them – but when her second marriage ended in divorce she journeyed down a different road, stating: “After my first relationship with a woman, I knew where I as going.”  Known for her “hard truths” in poems such as “Exodus”, “Brother”, “Questions” and “Womanslaughter”, Parker also had a whole other lesser-known side to her as a poet who made love poems – several of which we present here.  Some are tender and euphoric and one – “For Willyce” – has Parker’s characteristic ‘edge’.

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_portrait by Rotimi Fani-Kayode_Dennis Carney and Essex Hemphill in Brixton, London, 1988.  Hemphill is holding Carney and kissing the back of his neck.

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Essex Hemphill (1957-1995)

From: Ceremonies (1992)

“Rights and Permissions”

.

Sometimes I hold

my warm seed

up to my mouth

very close

to my parched lips

and whisper

“I’m sorry,”

before I turn my head

over the toilet

and listen to the seed

splash into the water.

.

I rinse what remains

down the drain,

dry my hands –

they return

to their tasks

as if nothing

out of place

has occurred.

.

I go on being,

wearing my shirts

and trousers,

voting, praying,

paying rent,

pissing in public,

cussing cabs,

fussing with utilities.

.

What I learn

as age advances,

relentless pillager,

is that we shrink

inside our shirts

and trousers,

or we spread

beyond the seams.

The hair we cherished

disappears.

.

Sometimes I hold

my warm seed

up to my mouth

and kiss it.

.     .     .

“Object Lessons”

.

If I am comfortable

on the pedestal

you are looking at,

if I am indolent and content

to lay here on my stomach,

my determinations

indulged and glistening

in baby oil and sweat,

if I want to be here, a pet,

to be touched, a toy,

if I choose

to be liked in this way,

if I desire to be object,

to be sexualized

in this object way,

by one or two at a time,

for a night or a thousand days,

for money or power,

for the awesome orgasms

to be had, to be coveted,

or for my own selfish wantonness,

for the feeling of being

pleasure, being touched.

The pedestal was here,

so I climbed up.

I located myself.

I appropriated this context.

It was my fantasy,

my desire to do so

and lie here

on my stomach.

Why are you looking?

What do you wanna

do about it?

.     .     .

“Invitations All Around”

.

If he is your lover,

never mind.

Perhaps, if we ask,

he will join us.

.     .     .

From: Earth Life (1985)

.

“Black Beans”

.

Times are lean,

Pretty Baby,

the beans are burnt

to the bottom

of the battered pot.

Let’s make fierce love

on the overstuffed

hand-me-down sofa.

We can burn it up, too.

Our hungers

will evaporate like – money.

I smell your lust,

not the pot burnt black

with tonight’s meager meal.

So we can’t buy flowers for our table.

Our kisses are petals,

our tongues caress the bloom.

Who dares to tell us

we are poor and powerless?

We keep treasure

any king would count as dear.

Come on, Pretty Baby.

Our souls can’t be crushed

like cats crossing streets too soon.

Let the beans burn all night long.

Our chipped water glasses are filled

with wine from our loving.

And the burnt black beans –

caviar.

.     .     .

“Better Days”

.

In daytime hours,

guided by instincts

that never sleep,

the faintest signals

come to me

over vast spaces

of etiquette

and restraint.

Sometimes I give in

to the pressing

call of instince,

knowing the code of my kind

better than I know

the National Anthem

or “The Lord’s Prayer”.

I am so driven by my senses

to abandon restraint,

to seek pure pleasure

through every pore.

I want to smell the air

around me thickly scented

with a playboy’s freedom.

I want impractical relationships.

I want buddies and partners,

names I will forget by sunrise.

I only want to feel good.

I only want to freak sometimes.

There are no other considerations.

A false safety compels me

to think I will never need kindness,

so I don’t recognize

that need in someone else.

.

But it concerns me,

going off to sleep

and waking

throbbing with wants,

that I am being

consumed by want.

And I wonder

where stamina comes from

to search all night

until my footsteps ring

awake the sparrows,

and I go home, ghost walking,

driven indoors to rest

my hunter’s guise,

to love myself as fiercely

as I have in better days.

.     .     .

From: Conditions (1986)

.

“Isn’t It Funny”

.

I don’t want to hear you beg.

I’m sick of beggars.

If you a man

take what you want from me

or what you can.

Even if you have me

like some woman across town

you think you love.

.

Look at me

standing here with my dick

as straight as yours.

What do you think this is?

The weathercock on a rooftop?

.

We sneak all over town

like two damn thieves,

whiskey on our breath,

no streetlights on the back roads,

just the stars above us

as ordinary as they should be.

.

We always have to work it out,

walk it through, talk it over,

drink and smoke our way into sodomy.

I could take you in my room

but you’re afraid the landlady

will recognize you.

.

I feel thankful I don’t love you.

I won’t have to suffer you later on.

.

But for now I say, Johnnie Walker,

have you had enough, Johnnie Walker?

Do-I-look-like-a-woman-now?

Against the fogged car glass

do I look like your crosstown lover?

Do I look like Shirley?

.

When you reach to kiss her lips

they’re thick like mine.

Her hair is cut close, too,

like mine –

isn’t it?

.     .     .

“Between Pathos and Seduction”

(For Larry)

.

Love potions

solve no mysteries,

provide no comment

on the unspoken.

Our lives tremble

between pathos and seduction.

Our inhibitions

force us to be equal.

We swallow hard

black love potions

from a golden glass.

New language beckons us.

Its dialect present.

Intimate.

Through my eyes

focused as pure, naked light,

fixed on you like magic,

clarity. I see risks.

Regrets? There will be none.

Let some wonder,

some worry, some accuse.

Let you and I know

the tenderness

only we can bear.

.     .     .

“American Wedding”

.

In america,

I place my ring

on your cock

where it belongs.

No horsemen

bearing terror,

no soldiers of doom

will swoop in

and sweep us apart.

They’re too busy

looting the land

to watch us.

They don’t know

we need each other

critically.

They expect us to call in sick,

watch television all night,

die by our own hands.

They don’t know

we are becoming powerful.

Every time we kiss

we confirm the new world coming.

.

What the rose whispers

before blooming

I vow to you.

I give you my heart,

a safe house.

I give you promises other than

milk, honey, liberty.

I assume you will always

be a free man with a dream.

In america,

place your ring

on my cock

where it belongs.

Long may we live

to free this dream.

.     .     .

Essex Hemphill (1957 – 1995) was a poet and activist, as frank and raw – and as radical – as one can get.  Hemphill’s compañero (and hero) in activism was Joseph Fairchild Beam (1954 – 1988), writer, editor, Black-Gay civil-rights agitator for positive change.  In a 1984 essay Beam declared:  “The bottom line is this:  We are Black men who are proudly gay.  What we offer is our lives, our love, our visions.  We are rising to the love we all need.  We are coming home with our heads held up high.”

When Hemphill wrote “In america, place your ring on my cock where it belongs”  he was probably – though one cannot be sure – not talking about the symbolic ring of the traditional marriage rite as we all know it.   And yet…his fervent desire was for Black, Gay Americans to be meaningfully re-connected to their own communities, communities to which they felt a powerful yearning to belong – having never left them, deep down in their hearts.  We feature the following photographs because we feel that Hemphill – even though he called his black, gay world “this tribe of warriors and outlaws” – would get it.  To paraphrase the final line of his poem American Wedding:  Long may you live to free your dream.

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ZP_Two women celebrate with friends and relatives after their outdoor marriage in Washington Square Park , New York City, 2011.

ZP_After 33 years together these two handsome septuagenarian New Yorkers married legally in 2011. Dignity and great pride are evident on their faces.

ZP_2008 poster directed toward the fathers of young, black, gay men_Gay Men’s Health Center, NYC_© photographer Ocean Morisset_Essex Hemphill, were he alive today, would’ve been heartened by such an initiative, knowing full well that the blood, sweat and tears of many ordinary people – who are also activists who love their communities – made such progress possible.

.     .     .     .     .

Clovis S. Palmer

“Los Tres Arbolitos”

.

Es redondo el mundo que nadie no ve,

y hay árboles de todas necesidades.

Algunos puedan ser grandes – otros, pequeños

– o, quizás, como muñequitos.

Puedan variar los árboles, tamaño por tamaño,

Están vistos por todas partes – y entre diques también.

Y nadie sabe de donde vienen.

.

Recordó mi mente unos tres arbolitos

– sobre una colina – a las tres y cuarto

– sí, sobre una colina y junto al molino

– tres arbolitos con miembros oleandos.

Estaban allá – cansados, hambrientos

– y esperaban por un jarrito de cerveza.

Sin embargo, se quedaron dormidos,

con sus manos colgantes

– directo allí.

.     .     .

Clovis S. Palmer

“Three Little Trees”

.

The world is round, which no one sees,

Having trees of all different needs.

Some may be big, some may be small – or even like a little doll.

Trees may vary from size to size,

Trees are seen from miles to miles.

Trees are seen from dam to dam and no one knows where they came from.

.

My mind went back on three little trees

Upon a hill – a quarter past three –

Upon the hill beside a mill, three little trees waving their limbs,

Hungry and tired the trees were there,

Waiting for a cup of beer.

Nevertheless, they fell asleep,

Having their hands hanging right there.

.     .     .    

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

“Árboles”

.

Creo que nunca veré

un poema tan hermoso como un árbol.

Un árbol cuya boca hambrienta esté pegada

al dulce seno fluyente de la tierra;

un árbol que mira a Dios todo el día.

Y alza sus brazos frondosos para rezar.

.

Un árbol que en verano podría llevar

un nido de petirrojos en sus cabellos;

en cuyo pecho se ha recostado la nieve;

quien vive íntimamente con la lluvia.

.

Los poemas están hechos por bufones como nosotros,

Pero solo Dios puede hacer un árbol.

.     .     .

Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

“Trees”

.

I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as a tree;

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

.     .     .

.     .     .

Versiones/interpretaciones en español:   Alexander Best

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Samurai writing a poem on a flowering cherry-tree trunk by Ogata Gekko, 1859-1920_ print courtesy of ogatagekkodotnet

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Ouchi Yoshitaka (a “daimyo” or feudal lord / un “daimyo” o soberano feudal, 1507-1551)

.

Both the victor and the vanquished are

but drops of dew, but bolts of lightning –

thus should we view the world.

.     .     .

Tanto el vencedor como el vencido no son

Sino gotas de rocío, relámpagos –

así deberíamos ver el mundo.

.     .     .

Hojo Ujimasa (1538-1590)

Hojo was a “daimyo” and “samurai” who, after a shameful defeat, committed “seppuku” or ritual suicide by self-disembowelment. He composed a poem before he killed himself:

.

“Death Poem”

.

Autumn wind of evening,

blow away the clouds that mass

over the moon’s pure light

and the mists that cloud our mind –

do thou sweep away as well.

Now we disappear –

well, what must we think of it?

From the sky we came – now we may go back again.

That’s at least one point of view.

.     .     .

Hojo Ujimasa (1538-1590)

“Poema de muerte”

.

Viento otoñal de la noche,

sopla lejos las nubes que obstruyen

la luz pura de la luna

y la neblina que nubla nuestra mente-

también bárrela lejos.

Ahora nosotros desaparecemos –

Y bien, ¿qué deberíamos pensar de esto?

Del cielo vinimos- ahora debemos regresar otra vez.

Ese es al menos un punto de vista.

.     .     .

The following poem by Akiko Yosano was composed as if to her younger brother who was drafted to fight in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). It was never specifically anti-war only that the poet wished that her brother not sacrifice his life. At the time the poem was not censored but in the militaristic 1930s it was banned in Japan.

.

Akiko Yosano/ 与謝野晶子(1878-1942)

.

Oh, my brother, I weep for you.

Do not give your life.

Last-born among us,

You are the most beloved of our parents.

Did they make you grasp the sword

And teach you to kill?

Did they raise you to the age of twenty-four,

Telling you to kill and die?

.

Heir to our family name,

You will be master of this store,

Old and honoured, in Sakai, and therefore,

Brother, do not give your life.

For you, what does it matter

Whether Lu-Shun Fortress falls or not?

The code of merchant houses

Says nothing about this.

.

Brother, do not give your life.

His Majesty the Emperor

Goes not himself into the battle.

Could he, with such deeply noble heart,

Think it an honour for men

To spill one another’s blood

And die like beasts?

.

Oh, my brother, in that battle

Do not give your life.

Think of mother, who lost father just last autumn.

How much lonelier is her grief at home

Since you were drafted.

Even as we hear about peace in this great Imperial Reign,

Her hair turns whiter by the day.

.

And do you ever think of your young bride,

Who crouches weeping behind the shop curtains

In her gentle loveliness?

Or have you forgotten her?

The two of you were together not ten months before parting.

What must she feel in her young girl’s heart?

Who else has she to rely on in this world?

Brother, do not give your life.

.     .     .

Akiko Yosano/ 与謝野晶子(Poetisa japonesa, 1878-1942)

.

Oh, hermano mío, lloro por ti.

No entregues tu vida.

El más pequeño de nosotros,

El más amado por nuestros padres.

¿Ellos te hicieron empuñar la espada

y te enseñaron a matar?

¿Ellos te criaron hasta los veinticuatro

para matar y morir?

.

Heredero de nuestro nombre

Tú serás el dueño de esta tienda,

Vieja y honrada, en Sakai, y por eso,

Hermano, no entregues tu vida.

¿A ti que puede importarte

si la fortaleza Lu- Shun cae o no?

En el código de los comerciantes

No hay nada sobre esto.

.

Hermano, no entregues tu vida.

Su Majestad el Emperador

no pelea su propia batalla.

¿Puede él, con su profundamente noble corazón,

pensar que es un honor para los hombres

derramar la sangre de uno y otro

y morir como bestias?

Oh, hermano mío, en esa batalla

no entregues tu vida.

Piensa en mamá, que perdió a papá apenas el otoño pasado.

Qué tan solitaria es su pena en casa

desde que te enlistaron.

Incluso cuando escuchamos sobre paz en este gran Reino Imperial

su cabello se torna más blanco cada día.

.

¿Alguna vez piensas en tu joven novia,

que se acuclilla llorando tras las cortinas de la tienda

con su gentil afecto?

¿O la has olvidado?

Ustedes estuvieron juntos no más de diez meses antes de separarse.

¿Cómo debe sentirse ella en su joven corazón de niña?

¿En quién más puede confiar en este mundo?

Hemano, no entregues tu vida.

.     .     .

Kaneko Misuzu (Japanese poetess, 1903-1930)

“To Love Everything”

.

I wish I could love them,

Anything and everything.

.

Onions, tomatoes, fish,

I wish I could love them all.

.

Side dishes, and everything.

Because Mother made them.

.

I wish I could love them,

Anyone and everyone.

.

Doctors, and crows,

I wish I could love them all.

.

Everyone in the whole world

– Because God made them.

.     .     .

Kaneko Misuzu (Poetisa japonesa, 1903-1930)

“Amar todo”

.

Desearía poder amarlos,

a cualquier cosa y a todo.

Cebollas, tomates y pescados,

desearía poder amarlos todos.

Guarniciones y todo,

porque Mamá los hizo.

Desearía poder amarlos,

a cualquiera y a todos.

Doctores y cuervos,

desearía poder amarlos todos.

Todos en todo el mundo

– Porque Dios los hizo.

.     .     .

Kaneko Misuzu

“Me, the little bird, and the bell”

.

私が両手をひろげても、(watashi ga ryōte wo hirogete mo)

お空はちっとも飛べないが、(osora wa chitto mo tobenai ga)

飛べる小鳥は私のように、(toberu kotori ha watashi yō ni)

地面を速く走れない。(jimen wo hayaku hashirenai)

.

私が体をゆすっても、(watashi ga karada wo yusutte mo)

きれいな音はでないけど、(kirei na oto wa denai kedo)

あの鳴る鈴は私のように、(anonaru suzu wa watashi no yō ni)

たくさんな唄は知らないよ。(takusan na uta wa shiranai yo)

.

鈴と、小鳥と、それから私、(suzu to kotori to sorekara watashi)

みんなちがって、みんないい。(minna chigatte, minna ii)

.     .     .

Even if I stretch out my arms

I can’t fly up into the sky,

But the little bird who can fly

Cannot run fast along the ground like me.

.

Even if I shake my body,

No beautiful sound comes out,

But the ringing bell does not

Know many songs like me.

.

The bell, the little bird and, finally, me:

We’re all different, but we’re all good.

.     .     .

Kaneko Misuzu

“El pajarito, la campanilla y yo”

.

Aunque estire mis brazos

No puedo elevarme hacia el cielo

Pero el pajarito que puede volar

No puede correr rápido sobre la tierra, como yo.

.

Aunque sacuda mi cuerpo

Ningún bello sonido se escuchará

Pero la campanilla no conoce

Tantas canciones como yo.

.

La campanilla, el pajarito y finalmente, yo:

Todos somos diferentes pero todos igualmente buenos.

.     .     .

Kenzo Ishijima(Japanese Kamikaze pilot, WW2 / Piloto japonés kamikaze, Segunda Guerra Mundial)

.

Since my body is a shell

I am going to take it off

and put on a glory that will never wear out.

.     .     .

Ya que mi cuerpo es una carcasa

Voy a quitármela de encima

Y a vestirme de gloria que nunca se desgastará.

.     .     .

“Doki no Sakura”:  a popular soldiers’ song of the Japanese Imperial Navy during WW2 in which a Kamikaze naval aviator addresses his fellow pilot – parted in death:

.

“Doki no Sakura”(“Cherry blossoms from the same season”)

.

You and I, blossoms of the same cherry tree

That bloomed in the naval academy’s garden.

Blossoms know they must blow in the wind someday,

Blossoms in the wind, fallen for their country.

.

You and I, blossoms of the same cherry tree

That blossomed in the flight school garden.

I wanted us to fall together, just as we had sworn to do.

Oh, why did you have to die, and fall before me?

.

You and I, blossoms of the same cherry tree,

Though we fall far away from one another.

We will bloom again together in Yasukuni Shrine.

Spring will find us again – blossoms of the same cherry tree.

.     .     .

“Doki no Sakura”:  una canción popular entre los soldados japoneses de la Segunda Guerra Mundial:

.

“Flores de cerezo de la misma estación”

.

Tú y yo, flores de un mismo cerezo

que floreció en el jardín de la academia naval.

Flores sabedoras de que deben volar en el viento algún día,

flores en el viento, caídas por su país.

.

Tú y yo, flores de un mismo cerezo

que floreció en el jardín de la escuela de aviación.

Quería que cayéramos juntos, como habíamos jurado hacer.

Oh, ¿por qué tenías que morir y caer antes que yo?

.

Tú y yo, flores de un mismo cerezo,

aunque caemos lejos el uno del otro,

floreceremos juntos otra vez en el santuario Yasukuni.

La primavera nos encontrará otra vez – flores de un mismo cerezo.

ZP_Cherry Blossom and Crow by Ogata Gekko, 1859 – 1920_print courtesy of ogatagekkodotnet

.

Sadako Kurihara (Japanese poetess, 1913-2005)

“ When we say ‘Hiroshima’ ”

.

When we say Hiroshima, do people answer,

gently, Ah, Hiroshima? …Say Hiroshima,

and hear Pearl Harbor.  Say Hiroshima,

and hear Rape of Nanjing.  Say Hiroshima,

and hear women and children in Manila, thrown

into trenches, doused with gasoline, and

burned alive.  Say Hiroshima, and hear

echoes of blood and fire.  Ah, Hiroshima,

we first must wash the blood off our own hands.

.     .     .

Sadako Kurihara (Poetisa japonesa, 1913-2005)

“Cuando decimos ‘Hiroshima’”

.

Cuando decimos Hiroshima, acaso la gente contesta,

gentilmente, Ah Hiroshima?… Di Hiroshima,

y escucha Pearl Harbor. Di Hiroshima,

y escucha la Violación de Nanjing. Di Hiroshima

y escucha a las mujeres y los niños en Manila, arrojados

en zanjas, empapados en gasolina y

quemados vivos. Di Hiroshima, y escucha

ecos de sangre y fuego. Ah, Hiroshima,

primero debemos lavarnos la sangre de nuestras propias manos.

.     .     .

Traducciones del inglés al español / Translations from English to Spanish:  Nuna López

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Garçonnet avec une binette_La Zambie_Little boy with hoe_Zambia_photograph © Boldt

.

Jane Kenyon(1947-1995)

“Laissons venir le soir”

.

Laissez la lumière de fin de journée
briller à travers les interstices de la grange,

pendant que le soleil descend, bougeant sur les bottes de paille.

Laissez le grillon craqueter
comme une femme prend ses aiguilles
et ses fils. Laissez venir le soir.

Laissez la rosée recueillie sur la houe abandonnée
dans les grandes herbes. Laissez les étoiles apparaître

et la lune divulguer sa corne d’argent.

Laissez le renard revenir à sa tanière de sable.
Laissez le vent s’éteindre. Laissez le hangar
aller vers le noir intérieur . Laissons venir le soir..

Pour la bouteille dans le fossé, à la pelle
dans d’avoine, pour l’air dans les poumons
Laissons venir le soir.

Qu’il vienne, comme il le fera, et n’aies
pas peur. Dieu ne nous laisse pas sans
consolation, laissons venir le soir.

.     .     .

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

“Let Evening Come”

.

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

let evening come.

.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

.     .     .

Traduction en français: “ReChab”

Voyez également son site poetique “art et tique et pique” – http://ecritscrisdotcom.wordpress.com

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_La Lengua_pintura de Alan Clark

.

La Lengua

.

Estoy “viviendo” tu leyenda sobre mi lengua

(es ésta la tierra santa en que vagaremos…)

Contigo…degustas como las palabras que me vienen,

esta lengua rastreando tus “dondes” más dulces,

y estas palabras hacen cosquillas en la garganta.

Pero está en tu piel que conozco lo que es

la adoración – la lengua, con franqueza, sobre

la piel de sal / sobre brazas de ti

(no bajo del agua sino en un nuevo aire de sal)

en que el universo – que es tú – ríe un “yo” para

bajarme más y más y inventir todas las palabras

que nunca te igualarán – la ola y “materia”

del cuento en el lenguaje de nuestro sueño

unido en nosotros…

Somos diosas y dioses del sudor,

del pecho, de las manos, y de los labios que

hablan solamente cuando no hay nada decir que:

Quede en en lugar oscuro donde están conocidos

tus muslos en lo de mi que está bastante liviano

para buscarte.

.     .     .

La Lengua

.

I’m living out your legend on my tongue

(this is the holy land we’re wandering in)

with you tasting like the words that come to me,

this tongue tracking down your softest “wheres”,

these words tickling my throat.  But in your flesh

I know what worship is, tongue directly

to the salt skin and fathoms of yourself

(not under water, in a new salt air)

in which the universe of you is laughing me

to go down and down to make up all the words

that will never equal you, wave and matter

as the story in the language of our dream

together:  goddesses and gods of sweat,

of breasts and hands and lips that only speak

when there’s nothing left to say but:   Linger,

in the dark place where your thighs are met

by what of me is light enough to find you.

.     .     .

Dentro de Ti –

.

Puedo ver la materia prima de sombras

y como el barro se torne en una clase de luz;

que soy como un pez que debe nadar

dentro de un mundo donde se arremolinan la hierba del mar

mientras levantas las manos durante un día caluroso…

Me siento dentro de ti la verde pura de una planta que

se torna en el calor de un horno de sangre;

lo que está ni despierto ni durmiendo en

la concha de un otro día que promete

todo de sí mismo para expectativas no perladas…

El olor en tu animal, la flor de mi lengua de pavo real;

el diccionario de mis sentidos no deletreados como besos;  y

siempre – siempre – la libertad del cielo

recogiendo las plumas de un pájaro – tú – que

se monta los alientos cuando miran tus ojos que

pueden asegurar – por la ley rarísima – algo que

nunca viere alguien:

las balanzas de los arcos de iris breves

y la creación del mundo.

.     .     .

In You –

.

I can see what stuff shadows are made of

and how clay can become a kind of light,

how I’m like a fish who can’t not swim

into a world where the seagrass is swirling

when you lift up your arms on a hot day…

feel in you the raw green of a plant

being turned into heat in an oven of blood,

what lies not awake, not asleep inside

the shell of another day promising

all of itself to no pearl expectations…

smell in your animal, the flower

of my peacock tongue, the dictionary

of my senses unspelled as kisses, and

always, always, the freedom of the sky

gathering the feathers of the bird you are,

who rides the winds when your eyes behold,

who can claim by the strangest of laws

what no-one else could ever see:  the scales

of brief rainbows and the world’s creation.

.     .     .

Poeta y pintor, Señor Alan Clark divide su vida entre Maine en EE.UU. y el México.  Guerrero y Sangre del Corazón fue publicado por Henning Bartsch (México, D.F.)  Tiene también un poemario de 2010:  Where They Know.   Sus piezas del teatro incluyen:  The End of It, The Couch – The Table – The Bed, and The Beast – y fueron montados en EE.UU. y México.  En 2004 tuvo una exhibición de sus pinturas en Rockland, Maine en Farnsworth Art Museum – Sangre y Piedra.

.

Alan Clark is an artist and poet, dividing his life between Maine and Mexico.  Guerrero and Heart’s Blood was published in Mexico City by Henning Bartsch.  A book of poems, Where They Know, was published in 2010.  Clark’s plays –including adaptations of Guerrero and Heart’s Blood – include: The End of It, The Couch – The Table – The Bed, and The Beast;  these have been staged in the U.S.A. and in Mexico.  Blood and Stone:  Paintings by Alan Clark,was at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine,in 2004.

Versiones en español / Spanish versions:   Alexander Best

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Crested Hornero in Argentina_Furnarius cristatus en Argentina_foto por Nick Athanas

Robert Gurney

“Horneritos”

.

Recibí un mail desde la Patagonia

acerca de unos pájaros.

.

Tienen el plumaje de la cabeza

estilo punk.

.

Dicen que son oriundos

del Paraguay y del Chaco

pero que a veces vuelan

hasta la Pampa

y otras incluso

hasta la Patagonia.

.

El mail describe

cómo descienden a comer

en el patio de un amigo

que vive en Río Colorado.

.

Luego vuelven a un árbol

para posar ante la cámara.

.

Ni siquiera se molestan

en peinarse primero.

.

Otro amigo,

que vive en Londres,

me dice que se llaman

horneritos copetones

y que sus nidos se parecen

a los hornos de los panaderos.

.

Pero no es eso

lo que me llama la atención

sino la imagen

del horno de barro

en la pared

de la casa de Vallejo*

en Santiago de Chuco.

.

Hay pájaros

que van y vienen,

entrando y saliendo

de su boca.

.

* César Vallejo, poeta peruano, 1892 – 1938

.     .     .

Robert Gurney

“Ovenbirds”

.

I had an e-mail the other day

from Patagonia

about some birds

with punk-style head feathers.

.

It said they are native

to Paraguay

and The Chaco

but that they sometimes

fly south

to the Pampas

and, sometimes,

even, to Patagonia.

.

It describes how

they come down to feed

in a friend’s patio

in Río Colorado.

.

Then they fly back into a tree

to pose for the camera

without even bothering

to comb their hair first.

.

Another friend,

who lives in London,

tells me that they are called

“horneritos copetones”

(furnarius cristatus);

in English –

Crested Horneros

or Ovenbirds;

and that they nest

in shrubs in scrub.

.

It seems

that they are so named

because they make

globular mud nests

that resemble

bakers’ ovens.

.

It wasn’t so much this,

though,

that filled my mind

but an image

of an oven in a wall

inside Vallejo’s* house

in Santiago de Chuco

with birds flying

in and out of it.

.

Robert Gurney:   St. Albans, England, June 2013

.

* César Vallejo, Peruvian poet, 1892 – 1938

.     .     .     .     .

Sunflower – dawn, high noon or dusk hour –

Why – for me – do you have such power?

You:  my glad grown-up face when I’m

open to joy, not anger’s toy;  when I’m

frank with feeling, not secretly reeling.

In you I go ahead, ask The Question! not

put it to rest and, oh – hope against hope for the best.

You are honesty, innocence – simple, true – and

guess why I love you so? My spirit does grow!

.

Alexander Best,  July 31st, 2013

Lily – my childhood flower. I learned to walk

among your stalks. And your ancient sophistication

is part of me now;   your beauty beholds me / I behold you,

and The World is good glimpsed from your point of view.

Of my sad boyhood face there remains a dream-trace,

and your fragrance and form taught me all I should know:

Stand tall and upfront and, well – put on a show.

Elegant, primitive, glowing style…

Lily, you sleep as a bulb under snow,

then you hold your head high in the summer awhile.

.

Alexander Best,  July 31st, 2013

Photographs of Lilies in Toronto gardens by Elisabeth Springate  (July 28^th– 30^th, 2013)

.

Alicia Claudia González Maveroff

“The Storyteller in The Zócalo”

.

Earlier today in the Square there was a storyteller

enchanting people with his words – everyone who

was in and around that patch of pavement where he stood.

Those who saw him there were all listening without

so much as uttering a sound.

In The Zócalo this man earns his livelihood, selling

pretty little dolls that wiggle and sway.

Even though you can’t see any strings pulled,

you don’t know how it’s done,

these little dolls –skeletons, rather –

dance, lie down, jump, kneel and walk,

while the vendor chatters like a “fairground charlatan”.

Incredible it was, the gift of the gab that fellow displayed.

He whiled away the time offering to passers-by

a cadaverous doll which seemed to be alive-and-kicking.

Children, mute, admired the dancing doll:

“Look how the dolly can dance!”

The adults present laughed to themselves, “Yeah, right,”

as if to say:  “What a scam.”

Yet he captured every one of us, this guy with his confabulations,

presenting those dolls that never ceased to dance.

Who knows what the trick is? There’s no harm in it…

For that reason, in fact, one has to hand it to him this evening,

knowing that this is all a hoax yet rascal-ishly fascinating…

Me, he left me bamboozled, making me believe him,

so I’ve gone and bought one of those little dolls

– in order to be rewarded with a performance.

And I have left the Square happy, yes – knowing that he‘s a crook…

.

Mexico City,  July 22^nd, 2012

.     .     .

Alicia Claudia González Maveroff

“El Fabulador del Zócalo”

.

Estaba el fabulador en la plaza hoy temprano,
encantando con palabras,
a todos los que rodeaban el sector donde se hallaba.
Esos que allí se encontraban, lo escuchaban sin hablar.
En el Zócalo este hombre gana su vida, vendiendo
unos muñequitos lindos pequeños que se menean.
Aunque no se ven cordeles, ni sabemos como lo hace,
estos pequeños muñecos, a más decir esqueletos,
bailan, se barazan, se acuestan, saltan, se arrodillan y andan,
mientras el vendedor habla como “charlatan de feria”.
Es increible la labia que este señor nos demuestra.
Pasa su tiempo ofreciendo, a todos los transeuntes,
el muñeco cadaverico, que está vivito y coleando.
Mientras el muñeco baila, los niños, quietos, lo admiran.
¡Cómo baila el muñequito!
Los grandes, sonriendo “a penas”, como diciendo
“¡es un cuento!”
Pero a todos ha atrapado, este señor con su charla,
ofreciendo los muñecos que no paran de bailar.
¿Quién sabe como es el truco? No lo hacen nada mal…
Por eso, por la actuación, que ha brindado él esta tarde,
sabiendo que es un engaño, que es un vil fascinador…
Yo, me he dejado embaucar, haciendo que le creía,
le he comprado un muñequito, para premiar su actuación.
Y me he marchado contenta, sabiendo que es un ladrón…

.
México D.F.,  22 – 07 – 2012

.

Alicia Claudia González Maveroff is a professor living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Her credo, in a single precise sentence, is:  I believe in Utopia – because Reality strikes me as impossible.

Alicia Claudia González Maveroff es una profesora que vive en Buenos Aires, Argentina.  En una oración sucinta, su consejo es ésto: Creo en la utopía, porque la realidad me parece imposible.

.

Translation and interpretation from Spanish into English / Versión inglés:  Alexander Best

.     .     .     .     .

Afropan, Toronto’s longest-running steel orchestra, was founded in 1973.  They have won the “Panorama”/Pan Alive competition more than two dozen times over the years.  Currently under the leadership of Earl La Pierre, Jr., Afropan has mentored many young pannists and its player-membership includes a large number of female musicians.

.

Today – Simcoe Day Holiday Monday – is the “last lap lime” for Toronto Caribbean Carnival 2013 – more commonly known as Caribana – after two weeks of special events that included a Junior Carnival, King and Queen Competition, Calypso Monarch Finals, The Grand Parade or “Jump Up” – plus Pan Alive.

Pan Alive brings together, through the Ontario Steelpan Association, a dozen or more homegrown steel-pan orchestras from Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario. These perform original compositions or arrangements before pan aficionados and a table of judges. The 2013 winners were Pan Fantasy, under the leadership of Wendy Jones (with arranger Al “Allos” Foster), playing SuperBlue’s “Fantastic Friday”.

Other competing orchestras at Pan Alive 2013 were:  Afropan, Pan Masters, Golden Harps, Panatics, Salah Steelpan Academy, Silhouettes, Hamilton Youth Steel Orchestra, New Dimension, Canadian Caribbean Association of Halton, St.Jamestown Youth Centre, JK Vibrations and Metrotones.

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Our Guest Editor – Trinidadian poet, Andre Bagoo – here takes a look at poetry inspired by the steel-pan in the following selection he has put together for Zócalo Poets.

.     .     .

STEEL-PAN is everywhere in the Caribbean, so much so that some people cannot help but define us by it. We’ve produced Nobel Laureates in the arts, economics and sciences; great athletes; contributed so much all over the planet – yet ask the average foreigner about the Caribbean and chances are the first thing they will talk about is steel-pan.  But the region has a complex relationship with pan. For us, pan music is not just fun. It is a ritual: an invocation of the pulse of history within our veins; a defiant assertion of individuality against larger global forces; an example of how one man’s trash can become treasure – a sublime subversion of power, economics and art. Trinidad and Tobago, inventor of the pan, prides itself in being the race that created what is said to be the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century. Trinidadian poets, and Caribbean poets generally, have a sophisticated relationship with the instrument. Its hard, silver and lyrical contours are not mere tourist ornament, but loaded symbol. Often, as in my poem ‘Carnival’ (http://www.bostonreview.net/bagoo-carnival), instead of being a symbol of pleasure, the pan becomes a hollow, opposite thing – creating irony because of our pleasurable expectations.

Roger Robinson’s ‘Texaco Oil Storage Tanks’ is ostensibly a poem about the materials used to make pans: oil barrels. But he finds the forces of history, power and economics inside them. While the oil storage tanks are large structures, the poem arguably evokes the images of smaller steel pans.  Derek Walcott strikingly uses the image of the pan as a kind of psycho-geographic tool in the opening of ‘Laventille’, whose first lines invite us to imagine that hill-top region as the arch of a pan. It’s also a device pregnant with meaning since Laventille is regarded as the birthplace of the instrument.  In Kamau Brathwaite’s great poem ‘Calypso’, pan makes an overt appearance but is, in fact, really all over the poem: its rhythm, its materials, its colour.  I have included David Blackman’s poem ‘Bassman’ because of how far it veers from our romantic associations with that figure.  And Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming’s ‘Steelpan in Miami’ is the final, fitting irony: pan exported, becoming a kind of prison of nostalgia, only made possible by migration away from the Caribbean basin.

– Andre Bagoo

.     .     .

Roger Robinson:  “Texaco Oil Storage Tanks”

(Trinidad, Pointe-à-Pierre, 1978)

.

You silver gods, with viscous black innards,

skin of iron plates and bones of steel rivets,

your Cyclopean eye is a bright red star.

At each entrance stands an armed, khakied guard;

they check our passes, though we’ve known them for years,

for though we work here, we don’t belong.

A new shift begins, our brown workboots trudge

and the unemployed beg and plead out front

in full view, with burning sun on their shame,

but it’s not worse than their child’s hunger pains.

Our fingernails are full of tar and dust:

you came for the oil, and left with our blood.

.     .     .

Derek Walcott:  From “Laventille”

[for V.S. Naipaul]

.

To find the Western Path

Through the Gates of Wrath

– Blake

.

It huddled there

steel tinkling its blue painted metal air,

tempered in violence, like Rio’s Favelas,

with snaking, perilous streets whose edges fell as

its Episcopal turkey-buzzards fall

from its miraculous hilltop

shrine,

down the impossible drop

to Belmont, Woodbrook, Maraval, St Clair

that shrine

like peddlers’ tin trinkets in the sun.

From a harsh

shower, its gutters growled and gargled wash

past the Youth Centre, past the water catchment,

a rigid children’s carousel of cement;

We climbed where lank electric

lines and tension cables linked its raw brick

hovels like a complex feud,

where the inheritors of the middle passage stewed,

five to a room, still camped below their hatch,

breeding like felonies,

whose lives revolve round prison, graveyard, church.

Below bent breadfruit trees

in the flat, coloured city, class

escalated into structures still,

merchant, middleman, magistrate, knight. To go downhill

from here was to ascend.

.     .     .

Kamau Brathwaite:  “Calypso”

from The Arrivants

.

1

The stone had skidded arc’d and bloomed into islands:

Cuba and San Domingo

Jamaica and Puerto Rico

Grenada Guadeloupe Bonaire

curved stone hissed into reef

wave teeth fanged into clay

white splash flashed into spray

Bathsheba Montego Bay

bloom of the arcing summers…

2

The islands roared into green plantations

ruled by silver sugar cane

sweat and profit

cutlass profit

islands ruled by sugar cane

And of course it was a wonderful time

a profitable hospitable well-worth-you-time

when captains carried receipts for rices

letters spices wigs

opera glasses swaggering asses

debtors vices pigs

O it was a wonderful time

an elegant benevolent redolent time–

and young Mrs. P.’s quick irrelevant crine

at four o’clock in the morning…

3

But what of black Sam

with the big splayed toes

and the shoe black shiny skin?

He carries bucketfulls of water

’cause his Ma’s just had another daughter.

And what of John with the European name

who went to school and dreamt of fame

his boss one day called him a fool

and the boss hadn’t even been to school…

4

Steel drum steel drum

hit the hot calypso dancing

hot rum hot rum

who goin’ stop this bacchanalling?

For we glance the banjoy

dance the limbo

grow our crops by maljo

have loose morals

gather corals

father out neighbour’s quarrels

perhaps when they come

with their cameras and straw

hats: sacred pink tourists from the frozen Nawth

we should get down to those

white beaches

where if we don’t wear breeches

it becomes an island dance

Some people doin’ well

while others are catchin’ hell

o the boss gave our Johnny the sack

though we beg him please

please to take ‘im back

so now the boy nigratin’ overseas…

.     .     .

David Jackman:  “Bassman”

.

Now yuh hearing a pain in yuh belly,

Who go provide now?

Who giving yuh room now?

After yuh throw way the costume and

Sleep in yuh vomit from pan fever

After yuh finish consume the liquor

Playing bass in mass

Playing ass in mass

You go shadow extravaganza

trying to stretch out the fever

making a las lap

trying to get back on the map.

But the year face yuh

all yuh have to go by

is Sparrow Miss Mary until

yuh hear

the bass man

in yuh head

Shadow bass man eh boss man nah.

Carnival sickness is the bossman.

Shadow eating good, Sparrow eating good,

CDC eating good.

But who go provide now

Who go provide for the bass pain

in the belly?  Who man tell me who?

.     .     .

Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming:  “Steelpan in Miami”

.

Last night I drove

over plain Miami

far in the Southwest

to Miami Pan Symphony

Panyard not under open skies

not bounded by mountain peaks

Cierro del Aripo and El Tucuche

but swallowed in the stomach

of a boxy warehouse

Steelpan music cornered

muffled by dense

con crete pre fab walls

not ringing out over

Queen’s Park Savannah

not jingling like running water

in East Dry River

Saw the girlchild beating

six bass pans

made one afternoon

not by Spree Simon the Hammer Man

but by Mike Kernahan

Trini in Miami

Listened to the boychild

strum the cello pan

heard the manchild

the womanchild

on the chrome tenor pans

carrying the calypso tune

Not to Maracas Bay

with coconut fronds

and six foot waves

but to Miami Beach

manmade fringed

with sea oats and coco plums

And when the music died

a farewell so warm like Miami heat

a Trini voice bidding

“Drive safe eh”

an incantation from the streets of

Port-of-Spain

a familiar song so strange

in this multilingual

Caribbean city in the frying pan

handle of North America

.     .     .

Endnotes:

Roger Robinson’s “Texaco Oil Storage Tanks” appears in his forthcoming collection, The Butterfly Hotel (Peepal Tree Press);   the extract from Derek Walcott’s “Laventille” is taken from his Collected Poems (Faber and Faber, 1986);   Kamau Brathwaite’s “Calypso” is a poem from The Arrivants;  David Jackman’s “Bassman” is scooped out of 100 Poems from Trinidad and Tobago (edited by Ian Dieffenthaller & Anson Gonzalez);  and Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming’s “Steelpan in Miami” appears in her collection Curry Flavour (Peepal Tree Press, 2000).

Andre Bagoo is a poet and journalist, born in 1983, whose first book of poems, Trick Vessels, was published by Shearsman Books (UK) in 2012. His poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming at: Almost Island; Boston Review; Cincinnati Review; Caribbean Review of Books; Caribbean Writer; Draconian Switch; Exit Strata PRINT! Vol. 2; Landscapes Journal, St Petersburg Review, Word Riot and elsewhere. An e-chapbook, From the Undiscovered Country, a collaboration with the artist Luis Vasquez La Roche, was published at The Drunken Boat in 2013.

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Mamie Estelle Fearing Scurlock with bouquet_1910_photographer Addison Scurlock

.

ZP Guest Editor Mildred K. Barya:

Three poets / Three photographs

.

In this piece I’m comparing and contrasting three poems by three poets that have a lot in common: “This is a Photograph of Me” by Margaret Atwood (Canada), “My Mother in Three Photographs” by Susan Kiguli (Uganda), and “Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year” by Raymond Carver (USA).

What I appreciate most is how these three poets/poems deal with perception, memory, reality and imagination against a backdrop of history, society, and culture. The passage of time and sense of place provide interesting points of view.

In Atwood’s poem, in the first stanza, we are not given the exact time the photograph was taken. We only know it’s in the past: It was taken some time ago. At a glance, the appearance is distorted, and seems to merge with the paper:

At first it seems to be

a smeared

print: blurred lines and grey flecks

blended with the paper;

Kiguli’s first stanza is a clear description of what the mother’s face in the photograph looks like, her poise, enigmatic aura, sexual energy and charm.

Her face looks out

flawless

her sexuality electric.

We are also told what she’s wearing, it’s the 1960s, and she’s full of dreams and longing of the individual and collective nation. An ethereal creature that’s here and beyond, not as “ghostly” as Atwood’s woman, but equally mystifying.

In a mini dress and sheer satin stockings

the girls of the 1960s

beautiful beyond belief.

She is looking through the camera

like her space is here and beyond

enchanting and enchanted

by the times when dreams of freedom were young

the fortunes of Uganda

hot and sizzling.

So here we have what we can see through our tactile and perceptible quality. There’s also something corporeal and ethereal at the same time. This is also true of Atwood’s message in her first stanza.

Carver’s first stanza provides clear setting and time. October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen. Right away we feel a strangeness—something chilly that comes with October and a dank, unfamiliar kitchen. In ideal or normal circumstances, one’s kitchen ought to be a cozy, familiar place, but not Carver’s kitchen. Then the father’s face is described, what is, and the appearance of what’s expected:

I study my father’s embarrassed young man’s face.
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string
of spiny yellow perch, in the other
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer.

In short, the three poets in their first stanzas are portraying what is [appearance] along with specific expectations and representations. The first image is hazy, affected by the imbalance of light and dark so one can say it appears oppressed even. The second captures the Sixties imagination: freedom, excitement, revolution, dreams, women’s power and so on. The last, what it means to be a [macho] man: able to fish and drink beer.

Moving on to Atwood’s second stanza, other things appear in the picture upon close inspection. To the left is something like a branch of a tree, to the right, something like a house. What can we make of these symbols appearing when we are looking at a face, a woman?

then, as you scan
it, you can see something in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

I would say a tree is productive and branches on to produce other trees, being on the left side where rationalism dwells, brain-wise. What the mind says you are. To the right, realm of intuition and heart field, we have a house, a vessel, which can be the embodiment of this face. Therefore we can say it’s the face that’s both tree and house, what’s inside manifesting outside. One can go deeper into feminist and patriarchal interpretations while trying to figure out what these symbols might mean culturally, how they get to replace a person, or we can stay with the intellectual and spiritual interpretations that can be applied universally. Your mind will tell you you’re one thing, your heart, another. People too; history, society, governments, ideologies, and so on will try to define you. To find the true you, you have to view all the perspectives and hope that by going through the labels, definitions, and constructions tagged on you, you might disappear inside yourself and come up with the real you on the other side.

It’s the 1970s in Kiguli’s second stanza. The face or body that was electric is now somber. Times are harsh although gentle on this woman. Instead of the mini dress the body is covered all the way to the ankles, the confident look replaced by sorrow. We learn that she’s also widowed, not of natural causes but government action, and the dress is imposed on her by the government of Idi Amin, which forbade women from wearing mini skirts. In very few words, so much history is packed in this personal stanza.

My mother in the 1970s
More sombre but her skin
Still flawless
The abrasive years gentle on her youth.
Her body wrapped in a long nylon dress
stopping her ankles and
full sleeves touching her wrists
hooded sorrow in her posture
the flowing dress
is not because
she is a widow (which is by government action)
but it is a government decree.
Her magnificence and elegance
Seem to support the given name of the dress
Amin nvaako.

In Carver’s second stanza, we discover what the person would like to be [but isn’t], what he wanted to be all his life. We have 1934, time of the Great Depression, WWII close on its heels. Like Kiguli’s and Atwood’s second stanzas, something grave has happened, the brave individual is disappearing in the struggles of history, and dreams are being squashed by the nation. Melancholy has replaced radiance, a new identity has emerged.

In jeans and denim shirt, he leans
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford.
He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity,
Wear his old hat cocked over his ear.
All his life my father wanted to be bold.

What would be Atwood’s last stanza before the parentheses reveals other things in the background, a lake and low hills.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

Here we can assume the person is completely gone. Perhaps not to end on a sad note, Atwood introduces in parentheses a chunk letting us know where the person is, where the photograph was taken, and how we might find her if we look closely.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the centre
of the picture, just under the surface

Drowning is a key metaphor that can be used strategically so it’s neither good nor bad. More like dying in order to live. She’s submerged and in the centre [of all things?]

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or how small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion.

but if you look long enough
eventually
you will see me.

In these last three lines, it seems after all that her disappearance is not an act of conformity but survival. It is necessary, and to know the difference is wisdom. Besides, isn’t it right to say that things of beauty and truth require one to dig deeper and longer in order to see the value or the self? We have something complex going on as the photograph obscures and reveals at the same time.

Kiguli’s last stanza is the 1990s. The mother wears a traditional dress, busuuti, which is also recognized as a formal, cultural and national dress. She has found peace, however uncertain, and is ready to pass on the future.

My mother in the 1990s
neat short hair
luring in its intricate curls.
She wears a busuuti
a sign of the times
a return home, a finding of
uncertain peace
a maturing of a woman and nation
an endorsement of a recognition of the troubles
she has weathered
a sitting down to count her losses and blessings
and a handover of the future.

In spite of the sadness, losses, changes, diffusion and pain, there’s no regret, tone-wise. What has happened has happened, what is, is, and what will be will be. This is the claim of reality, what endures. How the individual, cultural and national icon come together and are embodied in as simple a metaphor as a dress.

Like Atwood’s last stanza, the conformity is an act of survival. Beneath it all the person still lives. The personal is so blended with the public/national you cannot see one without the other, you cannot appreciate or celebrate one without the other getting in the way. Also, what starts as personal—Kiguli’s “mother” and Atwood’s “I”—takes on the representation of every woman of those times. Just like Carver’s “father” might symbolize every father then.

In Carver’s last stanza, we have what the father is in real life as opposed to the “bluff and hearty” appearance in the picture.

But the eyes give him away, and the hands
that limply offer the string of dead perch
and the bottle of beer. Father, I love you,
yet how can I say thank you, I who can’t hold my liquor either,
and don’t even know the places to fish?

There’s the importance placed by society on males who must teach their sons how to fish and also hold their liquor. What happens when they don’t conform? The contrast here is that unlike the women/mothers (in Atwood and Kiguli’s poems) who might be killed if they don’t conform, the males/fathers get away with it, and are still loved. This is where society’s double standards come in.

From the gender perspective, the saddest thing perhaps is that in the poems, the women were all those confident things that had to be submerged, while Carver’s “father” was never all those bold poses to begin with. In the end, the emotional punch line in all the poems is in the lack of fulfillment of dreams, no matter how false or genuine their premise.

All three poems recognize that a person is a product of both the individual’s and society’s failures, struggles and successes. In spite of disappointments and frustrations, love remains—for Carver—it is what conquers however dismal the person is. For Atwood, it is the discovery of the true self within the drowning, understanding why sometimes one has to appear as a smear on the surface, the real tiger or lion beneath. For Kiguli, it is the resilience and maturity that comes to surface, the hard times lived through, and how one may count both blessings and losses.

—Mildred K. Barya

.     .     .

Margaret Atwood (born 1939)

“This is a Photograph of Me”

.

It was taken some time ago
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;
.
then, as you scan
it, you can see something in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.
.
In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.
.
(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.
.
I am in the lake, in the centre
of the picture, just under the surface.
.
It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or how small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion.
.
but if you look long enough
eventually
you will see me.)

ZP_Ugandan women wearing busuutis

Susan Kiguli (born 1969)

“My Mother in Three Photographs”

.

Her face looks out
flawless
her sexuality electric
in a mini dress and sheer satin stockings
the girls of the 1960s
beautiful beyond belief.
She is looking through the camera
like her space is here and beyond
enchanting and enchanted
by the times when dreams of freedom were young
the fortunes of Uganda
hot and sizzling.

.

My mother in the 1970s
More sombre but her skin
Still flawless
The abrasive years gentle on her youth.
Her body wrapped in a long nylon dress
stopping her ankles and
full sleeves touching her wrists
hooded sorrow in her posture
the flowing dress
is not because
she is a widow (which is by government action)
but it is a government decree.
Her magnificence and elegance
Seem to support the given name of the dress
Amin nvaako *.

.

My mother in the 1990s
neat short hair
luring in its intricate curls.
She wears a busuuti
a sign of the times
a return home, a finding of
uncertain peace
a maturing of a woman and nation
an endorsement of a recognition of the troubles
she has weathered
a sitting down to count her losses and blessings
and a handover of the future.

.

* Amin Nvaako means Amin let me be or Amin leave me alone

.

ZP_Portrait of a man in North Carolina_1910s_photographer Hugh Mangum

.

Raymond Carver (1938-1988)

“Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year”

.

October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen
I study my father’s embarrassed young man’s face.
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string
of spiny yellow perch, in the other
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer.
.
In jeans and denim shirt, he leans
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford.
He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity,
Wear his old hat cocked over his ear.
All his life my father wanted to be bold.
.
But the eyes give him away, and the hands
that limply offer the string of dead perch
and the bottle of beer. Father, I love you,
yet how can I say thank you, I who can’t hold my liquor either,
and don’t even know the places to fish?

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Romare Bearden (1911-1988)_Morning of the Rooster_1980

.

Gregory Porter (Cantante/compositor de jazz, nacido en 1971, EE.UU.)

“Somos pintados sobre un lienzo ”

.

Somos como niños

Somos pintados sobre un lienzo

logrando los tonos mientras pasamos

Empezamos con el “gesso”

puesto con pinteles por la gente que conocemos

Sea esmerado con la técnica mientras avanza

Se aleja para admirar mi vista

¿Puedo usar los colores que yo elijo?

¿Tengo algo que decir sobre lo que usted usa?

¿Puedo conseguir colores verde y colores azul?

.

Somos hechos del pigmento de pintura que se aplica

Nuestras historias son dichos por nuestros tonos

Como Motley y Bearden

Estos maestros de la paz, de la vida,

Hay capas de colores, del tiempo

Se aleja para admirar mi vista

¿Puedo usar los colores que yo elijo?

¿Tengo algo que decir sobre lo que usted usa?

¿Puedo conseguir unos verde y unos azul?

.

Somos como niños

Somos pintados sobre una gama de lienzos…

ZP_Archibald John Motley (1891-1981)_Self Portrait_1933

.

Gregory Porter (born 1971, American jazz vocalist/songwriter)

“Painted on canvases”

.

We are like children
we’re painted on canvases
picking up shades as we go
We start off with “gesso”
brushed on by people we know
Watch your technique as you go
Step back and admire my view
Can I use the colours I choose?
Do I have some say what you use?
Can I get some greens and some blues?

.

We’re made by the pigment of paint that is put upon
Our stories are told by our hues
Like Motley and Bearden
these masters of peace and life
layers of colours and time
Step back and admire my view
Can I use the colours I choose?
Do I have some say what you use?
Can I get some greens and some blues?

.
We are like children
We’re painted on canvases…

.     .     .     .     .

En el patio del fondo los girasoles se inclinan hacia adelante

Tarde de noche, de la puerta, están llamados por sus nombres

los gatos, y yo, jadeante, deduzco que la parcela vallada está

desocupada, la ventana del lado de la casa no tiene indicio de

la camisa amarilla de él, su cuerpo delgado comportando como

pesa de plomo después de su labor del día

.

Lleno de contradicciones, una criatura absurda

más o menos encontrándome contra las cuerdas,

unas diecisiete diferentes,

Ansio el paraíso de la compasión, de la condolencia,

y “ya está bien – bastante”

.     .     .

The sunflowers lean heavy in the yard

late at night, the cats are called by name

from the door, and breathless I gather

that the yard is empty, the side window

of the house holds no sign of his

yellow shirt, his slim body

carried heavily after a day’s work

.

Full of contradictions, an absurd

creature more or less at the end

of seventeen different ropes

I long for the paradise

of sympathy, condolence,

and “that’s enough of that”

.     .     .

Tricia Postle es músico y cantante.   A ella le interesa la gran variedad musical del mundo, incluso el cancionero occitano, la ópera / la zarzuela, y las canciones exquisitas de Reynaldo Hahn. También toca el “kanun” y ha cantado en una banda “steam-punk”.

.     .     .     .     .

The retrospective exhibition Ai Weiwei: According to What? opens today at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada. Ai Weiwei (born 1957) is China’s most famous – or infamous – depending on your weltanschauung – contemporary artist. Currently without a passport and not permitted to leave China, Ai Weiwei has, with a team of energetic workers, fashioned bold sculptures from humble stools, bicycles, firewood, compacted tea leaves – even rusty lengths of rebar.

“Straight” consists of several thousand sections of rebar salvaged – then straightened out – from 2008 earthquake rubble of collapsed buildings that killed 5000 schoolchildren – a horrific event – combined with shoddy “tofu” architecture – that Chinese authorities tried to downplay but which Ai Weiwei sought to memorialize. David Jager, in the August 15^th issue of Toronto’s NOW magazine, writes: “Every element of the sculpture, from process to material to final form [ an undulating moraine with a rift through it ] expresses Ai’s deep desire to reshape a hopelessly corrupt and tangled situation. Knowing that the bodies of the earthquake victims were once trapped within the sculptural material makes as visceral an impact as seeing a pile of shoes from Auschwitz. This is what art is supposed to do.”

Whether he is letting drop and smash a Han dynasty urn, or starring, with shaved head and red rosebud lips, in the “music video” Dumbass – about his 2011 jail experience – Ai Weiwei provokes us and respects our intelligence.

.

Ai Qing (pen name of Jiang Haicheng, 1910-1996) was Ai Weiwei’s father, and a notable poet of the Mao Zedong era in China. In his early 20s Ai Qing was imprisoned for two years for opposing the Kuomintang;   in 1957 he was sent to a hard-labour camp for criticizing his government in print;  he spent the next twenty-plus years emptying latrines and so forth as part of his “mental correction” for Wrong Thought under Mao.  We feature here a selection of Ai Qing’s poems…

.     .     .

“Wall”

.

A wall is like a knife

It slices a city in half

One half is on the east

The other half is on the west

.

How tall is this wall?

How thick is it?

How long is it?

Even if it were taller, thicker and longer

It couldn’t be as tall, as thick and as long

As China’s Great Wall

It is only a vestige of history

A nation’s wound

Nobody likes this wall

.

Three metres tall is nothing

Fifty centimetres thick is nothing

Forty-five kilometres long is nothing

Even a thousand times taller

Even a thousand times thicker

Even a thousand times longer

How could it block out

The clouds, wind, rain, and sunshine of the heavens?

.

And how could it block out

The currents of water and air?

.

And how could it block out

A billion people

Whose thoughts are freer than the wind?

Whose will is more entrenched than the earth?

Whose wishes are more infinite than time?

.

(1979)

.

.     .     .

“Trees”

.

One tree, another tree,

Each standing alone and erect.

The wind and air

Tell their distance apart.

.

But beneath the cover of earth

Their roots reach out

And at depths that cannot be seen

The roots of the trees intertwine.

.

(1940)

.

.     .     .

“Fish Fossil”

.

With such agility in your movements,

Such buoyancy in your strength,

You leapt in the foam

And swam in the sea.

.

Unfortunately, a volcano’s eruption

Or perhaps an earthquake

Cost you your freedom

And buried you in the silt.

.

After millions of years

Members of a geological team

Found you in a layer of rock

And you still look alive.

.

But you are now silent,

Without even a sigh.

Your scales and fins are whole

But you cannot move.

.

So absolutely motionless,

You have no reaction to the world.

You cannot see the water or the sky,

You cannot hear the sound of the waves.

.

Gazing at this fossil,

Even a fool can learn a lot:

Without movement

There is no life.

.

To live is to struggle

And advance in the struggle;

Even if death is not at our doorstep,

We should use our energy to the fullest.

.

.     .     .

“Hope”

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Dream’s friend

Illusion’s sister

.

Originally your shadow

Yet always in front of you

.

As formless as light

As restless as wind

.

Between you and her

She keeps her distance always

.

Like flying birds outside the window

Like floating clouds in the sky

.

Like butterflies by the river

She is sly and lovely

.

When you rise, she flies away

You ignore her, and she nudges you

.

She is always with you

To your dying breath.

“Coal’s Reply”

.

Where do you live?

.

I live in ten thousand years of steep mountain

I live in ten thousand years of crag-rock

.

And your age?

.

My age is greater than the mountain’s

Greater than the crag-rock’s

.

How long have you been silenced?

Since the dinosaurs governed the earth

Since the earth felt its first tremor

.

Have you perished in this deep rancour and bitterness?

.

Death? No, no, I’m still alive

Please, give me a light, give me a light.

.

(1937)

.

.     .    .

Translations from the Chinese:  Chen Eoyang, Peng Wenlan, and Marilyn Chin

.     .     .     .     .

ZP_Cicada from Borneo_© photographer Alex Hyde

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Después de un mutismo de seis semanas – tiempo fresco en vez del calor típico del verano – empieza de nuevo “la música de cámara de los timbales” – con la recurrencia de temperaturas de 30 grados centígrados.  Las cigarras-machos del barrio “cantan” para llamar la atención de sus hembras – y después del apareamiento las cigarras morirán.  Pero – como sucede con nuestro aposte de María Elena Walsh (“Como la Cigarra”) – La Cigarra nos inspira metafóricamente – un testigo es el poema siguiente del Padre Ernesto Cardenal…

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Ernesto Cardenal (poeta, sacerdote y político, nace en 1925, Granada, Nicaragua)

“En Pascua resucitan las cigarras”

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En Pascua resucitan las cigarras
—enterradas 17 años en estado de larva—
millones y millones de cigarras
que cantan y cantan todo el día
y en la noche todavía están cantando.
Sólo los machos cantan:
las hembras son mudas.
Pero no cantan para las hembras:
porque también son sordas.
Todo el bosque resuena con el canto
y sólo ellas en todo el bosque no los oyen.
¿Para quien cantan los machos?
¿Y porque cantan tanto? ¿Y que cantan?
Cantan como trapenses en el coro
delante de sus Salterios y sus Antifonarios
cantando el Invitatorio de la Resurrección.
Al fin del mes el canto se hace triste,
y uno a uno van callando los cantores,
y después sólo se oyen unos cuantos,
y después ni uno. Cantaron la resurrección.

.     .     .

After a silence of six weeks – cool weather instead of our typical Torontonian hot summer days – the “tymbal” chamber-music of the male cicadas is back in full force, now that temperatures are hitting 30 degrees celsius once again.  The cicada’s “song” attracts a female to mate, and afterwards the cicadas die.   And yet, as with our previous post – María Elena Walsh’s “Like a Cicada” – The Cicada inspires us metaphorically;  witness the following poem by Father Ernesto Cardenal…

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Ernesto Cardenal (poet, priest, politician, born 1925, Granada, Nicaragua)

“At Easter-time the cicadas are resurrected”

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At Easter-time* the cicadas are resurrected

– underground 17 years in a larval state –

millions and millions of cicadas

which sing sing sing all day long

and which, at nightfall, are still singing…

Only the males do so – the females are quiet;

because they are also deaf.

The woods resound with cicada-song

and just the female cicadas – among all of us in the woods – don’t hear it.

For whom do these male cicadas sing then?

And why do they sing so much – and what is it that they are singing?

They sing like Trappist monks in a chorus,

before them their open Book of Psalms and “Antifonarios”,

incanting the Invitatory Psalm of the Resurrection.

After a month or more the cicada-song becomes sad,

and, one by one, the “singers” fall silent,

and then we hear just a few,

and, after that, nary a one.

They have sung the Resurrection.

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* Perhaps April in a hotter southern climate, but not till July in Canada

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Traducción en inglés / Translation from Spanish into English: Alexander Best

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ZP_Perro solitário_Las Playitas_Cuatro Ciénegas_Coahuila_México_fotógrafo Hector Garza

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Irene Rutherford McLeod (1891-1968)

“Perro solitário”

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Soy un perro magro, un perro agudo – salvaje y solitário;

Un perro alborotador y firme, estoy cazando yo solo;

Un perro malo – y me cabreo – provocando a los tontos borregos;

Me gusta sentirme y aullar a la luna – para evitar que los almas gordas duerman.

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Nunca ser un cachorro del regazo o lamer los pies sucios,

Un perrito dócil, elegante, arrastrándome por mi carne,

Ni la alfombrilla del hogar ni el plato bien llenado,

Sino puertas cerradas, piedras afiladas – y golpes, patadas:  el odio.

.

Ningunos otros perros – para mí – corriendo hombro a hombro,

Algunos han corrido un rato corto – pero ningunos pueden durar.

El camino solo es mío – ¡Ah! – la senda ardua me parece bien:

¡Viento furioso, estrellas indómitas, el hambre de la búsqueda!

.     .     .

Irene Rutherford McLeod (1891-1968)

“Lone Dog”

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I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
I’m a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.
.
I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick and hate.
.
Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best –
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!

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Traducción del inglés al español  /  Translation from English into Spanish:  Alexander Best
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