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Poetry

from “Latitudes”

By Piedad Bonnett
Translated from Spanish by Ezra E. Fitz

Kitchen
                       For Ma. Victoria

A kitchen can be the world,
a desert, a place to weep.

We were there: two mothers talking in very low tones
as if there were children sleeping in the bedroom.

But no one was there.  Only the resounding silence
where music once filled the room from wall to wall.

We searched for the words.  We sipped our tea
looking down the bitter well of the past,

two mothers standing on the bridge that unites them
as they bear their emptiness in their hands.

 

After the Poetry Recital

The recital has ended here,
at the languishing country theater
dressed in glitz like an old aunt.
We poets leave,
slowly, poetically, self-satisfied.
And the sleepy man in the front row,
and the two ladies in white, smelling of magnolias,
the professor of literature, the students
faithfully taking notes, and the homeless man
reciting Walt Whitman…

They also emerge in the powerful moonlight.
in the distance you hear
the excited cheers of rugby players
leveling the local team.
Meanwhile, the poet who had gone to the bathroom arrives,
and from the string of lights where the thrushes sleep,
a threatening drop has fallen.

Then, in the midst of a night bereft of metaphors,
a shy young man with a look of astonishment in his eyes
offers us his hand.
This is rare around here.  And he expresses his happiness.
We nod our heads appreciatively
and watch him depart.

A country boy.  The poetry.
We walk slowly back to the hotel,
humbly, poetically, uncertain.

 

© Piedad Bonnett. By arrangement with the authors. Translation © 2017 by Ezra Fitz. All rights reserved.

English Spanish (Original)

Kitchen
                       For Ma. Victoria

A kitchen can be the world,
a desert, a place to weep.

We were there: two mothers talking in very low tones
as if there were children sleeping in the bedroom.

But no one was there.  Only the resounding silence
where music once filled the room from wall to wall.

We searched for the words.  We sipped our tea
looking down the bitter well of the past,

two mothers standing on the bridge that unites them
as they bear their emptiness in their hands.

 

After the Poetry Recital

The recital has ended here,
at the languishing country theater
dressed in glitz like an old aunt.
We poets leave,
slowly, poetically, self-satisfied.
And the sleepy man in the front row,
and the two ladies in white, smelling of magnolias,
the professor of literature, the students
faithfully taking notes, and the homeless man
reciting Walt Whitman…

They also emerge in the powerful moonlight.
in the distance you hear
the excited cheers of rugby players
leveling the local team.
Meanwhile, the poet who had gone to the bathroom arrives,
and from the string of lights where the thrushes sleep,
a threatening drop has fallen.

Then, in the midst of a night bereft of metaphors,
a shy young man with a look of astonishment in his eyes
offers us his hand.
This is rare around here.  And he expresses his happiness.
We nod our heads appreciatively
and watch him depart.

A country boy.  The poetry.
We walk slowly back to the hotel,
humbly, poetically, uncertain.

 

© Piedad Bonnett. By arrangement with the authors. Translation © 2017 by Ezra Fitz. All rights reserved.


Piedad Bonnett reads “Kitchen” (“Cocina”) in the original Spanish.

Cocina

                        Para Ma. Victoria.

Una cocina puede ser el mundo,
un desierto, un lugar para llorar.

Estábamos ahí: dos madres conversando en voz muy baja
como si hubiera niños durmiendo en las alcobas.

Pero no había nadie. Sólo la resonancia del silencio
donde alguna vez hubo música trepando las paredes.

Buscábamos palabras. Bebíamos el té
mirando el pozo amargo del pasado, 

dos madres sobre el puente que las une
sosteniendo el vacío con sus manos. 

 


Piedad Bonnett reads “After the Poetry Recital” (“Despues del recital de poesía”) in the original Spanish.

Después del recital de poesía

                                     A Juan Manuel Roca y Antonio Cisneros

Ha terminado el recital
en el descaecido teatro de provincia
vestido de oropeles como una tía anciana.
Salimos los poetas,
con paso lento, orondo, de poetas.
Y el hombre soñoliento de la primera fila,
las dos damas de blanco,  perfumadas magnolias,
el maestro de lengua, los alumnos
que tomaban fiel nota, el indigente
que recita a Walt Whitman,

salen también hacia la recia luna.
A lo lejos se oyen
los entusiastas vítores  al equipo de rugby
que arrasa a los locales.
Mientras llega el poeta que ha ido al mingitorio,
de las cuerdas de luz donde duermen los tordos
ha caído una gota amenazante.

Entonces, en  medio de la noche desierta de metáforas,
un jovencito tímido, mirando hacia su azoro,
nos ofrece su mano. 
Esto es raro por aquí. Y dice su dicha.
Movemos la cabeza, agradecemos,
lo miramos partir.

Un chico de provincia. La poesía.
Vamos hacia el hotel con paso lento,
con paso humilde, incierto, de poetas. 

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