Knowing deep in her bones that “memory itself is presence,” Jeannette Lozano Clariond writes a poetry that is a kind of tuning, a listening on the shore for voices on the other side, “melodies from some other language.” She writes of desire and self-doubt, “twilight in the alabaster.” Distrusting “the abyss of knowledge,” her poems insist that, as Pound noted, “Only emotion endures.” She says that she’s always thought that the poet’s mother-tongue must be silence, a silence that keeps company with sleep, shadows, and the desert. In silence, she told me, what cannot be said reaches its greatest intensity. — Forrest Gander, translator
/ / /
The minarets go blind from the radiance
and Brueghel, at the shore, discovers God’s door.
The red-ochre of pebbles, slime and oblivion.
Between the vision of Paradise and the sanctuary,
blue lions seek out the water in love’s bed.
In that water, foundations;
in its mantle of fire,
resonances,
melodies from some other language.
* * *
In your eyes,
a torn history,
struggles, wild animals.
I seek to save you:
Aj-ibur-shapu: May the invisible enemy not prevail,
let not his blood pass into your cup.
Unveiled face,
all the fear you’ve held in
returns
each afternoon
while you sip your demitasse.
* * *
Twilight in the alabaster,
mounds of silt under the fronds,
cedar logs
and you,
mirrored between the dunes.
Blind to your destiny
your hand holding your hand, you go off
into the abyss of knowledge.
* * *
The gold of clouds slides
into the thickets
of your passing, pachyderm, through Siam.
Precious stones on your head,
I come to the tree of purple leaves
that tell of the moon
hovering over your skin. Caught in your trunk,
freshly torn
branches
are skies of prayer.
Memory itself is presence,
the fruit of what’s been lived,
in equilibrium it continues, for those who see,
toward the green world.
/ / / / /
Los alminares ciegan de resplandor
y Brueghel, a la orilla encuentra la puerta de Dios.
Almagre de guijarros, limo y olvido.
Entre la visión del Paraíso y el santuario
los leones azules buscan el agua en el lecho del amor.
En esa agua los cimientos,
en su manto de fuego
resonancias,
melodías de otra lengua.
* * *
En tus ojos
la historia desgarrada,
las luchas, los animales fieros.
Busco salvarte:
Aj ibur shapu, No persevere el enemigo oculto,
no sea su sangre en tu vasija.
Rostro sin velo,
cuanto has temido
cada tarde
regresa
mientras das sorbos en la demitasse.
* * *
Penumbra en el alabastro,
montes de limo bajo las frondas,
maderos de cedro
y tú,
espejeante entre las dunas.
Ciega a tu destino
de la mano vas
hacia el abismo del conocimiento.
* * *
El oro de las nubes se desliza
en la espesura
de tu paso, paquidermo, por Siam.
Piedras preciosas ornan tu cabeza,
accedo al árbol de purpúreas hojas
que me hablan de aquella luna
sobre tu piel. En tu trompa
ramas
recién arrancadas
son cielos de plegaria.
La memoria es presencia,
fruto de lo vivido,
en equilibrio avanza, vidente,
hacia el verdor.