Reminiscence
Translated By Janet McAdams
I explore old waters
I search for the first fire.
Infancy,
that house filled with ghosts;
my grandmother’s courtyard,
the earth, the trees from which I’m made.
The guava smashing against the patio’s red tiles midafternoon,
afternoons where I watched life pass by from a sidewalk.
And I fooled myself believing my hands were made to narrate the world.
I write, that’s for sure,
there’s so much I want to name and that I can’t;
so much life slipping through my hands,
so much shadow ruffling my hair
so many words suspended in the air
—miniscule dust particles
lit by the light from the window—
that I must shake off
the way someone shakes off the last layer of skin.
And I lie
if I say that it’s stone, mountain, sea, river,
the birds taking flight, the corners of a house,
my grandmother’s face, her numerous ghosts
the ones who today
ask to be counted.
There is so much that I want to name and that I cannot.
I write, that’s for sure.
Death, from the other side,
is levitating.
Translated from the Spanish
Notes:
Read the Spanish-language version, “Reminiscencia.”
Source: Poetry (March 2022)