And likewise they contend that
animals / Wander about head downwards and cannot fall / Off from the earth into
the sky below / Any more than our bodies of themselves can fly / Upwards into
the regions of the sky; / That when they see the sun, the stars of night / Are
what we see, and that they share the hours / Of the wide heavens alternately
with us, / And pass nights corresponding to our days.
(...)__That suddenly
the ramparts of the world / Would burst asunder and like flying flames / Rush
headlong scattered through the empty void, / And in like manner all the rest
would follow, / The thundering realms of sky rush down from above, / Earth suddenly
withdraw beneath our feet, / And the whole world, its atoms all dissolved, /
Amid the confused ruin of heaven and earth / Would vanish through the void of
the abyss, / And in a moment not one scrap be left / But desert space and atoms
invisible, / For at whatever point you first allow / Matter to fail, there
stands the gate of death
Lucretius,
On The Nature of Things
THE EARTH WAS OURS
and was good
in its way
that light
sliding from
gray
to the pure blue of young moss
the eye was
ours
to see
and we bled it
we mixed the
liquid with warm grease
and scented herbs
that mask sulfur’s stench
the light was good
and we touched
the golden edge
that shone
a sheet of
particles and waves
intact in all things
seamless
they came for
stones
for
eating from woman
for
killing animals
but the earth
was ours
and we sank our arrows into moss
stirring that poisoned dust
in the plant’s vulva
we shot
and
the wound made their gums blue
and their fingernails
so
at the first spring’s end
the
strangers went mad
scratching at
their own faces with their fingernails
tearing
skin
and
sinking fingers
into
sores
the earth
was ours
and again we’d
touch stone and salt
coppery skin of pears
the downy hair of thighs
we touched
without fear
without
thinking
there were few things in existence that
surprised us
our face could feel
every gesture and
reflection of light
and open a black groove in silhouettes
they were ours the shape
the
stuff of abundance
although we have renounced
the little tenderness that remains for us
is now a matter of atoms
and charges and valences
here came
things
that changed our form
“deeper than thought
much
deeper”
and vaster
than the sky
still the world was good
and it was cruel
it
was better to be a bird a
crane once
there was
once a harsh wind
like the wind it was bitter
to be a
crane once
within
reach
but
the air bit me half to death
and I mooed
I mooed like cows moo
to see
if it was the sound it was the light
that changed
I spread
the mix on my body
to see if madness would subside
but then things got worse
then truly
air and sun took bites
eating
our corneas
like moss
so everything was blue and mild and bland
and ordered
our shadow to roll
into spheres
(so that the
conjurer may speak
will bite into
the sun
will bite skin and stone
in thatthirstrisingsedimenttherehere
until it would clearly sing the plain that/
divide by birth prairies and barren wastelands/ whitewashed with quicklime on
earthly eyelids dissolving so the light/ white face on its horizon of burnt
silhouettes/ its boiling pot heat snatching the
distance between its feet and/
the
fantasy of sand that empties the living form
of its
body/ of its journey/
basilisk for he who goes forth with a staff/
pursuing without hunting the few remaining beasts
(and they
thattheynolongerbitethemassofearth
that branches and roots
would detach
and the
trees begin to f l
o a t
like
boats toward the sky
like
hills dragging the shell
until it sinks into the universal tide)
which is to say
we filled our head with vapors
of elusive heat
that do not seep through skin
like moss
or fig sap
but you must not believe that things
change so
that I can’t touch you
still the
world is good
in its way
good when biting with its
millstone
if
alarmed
if
spitting a stalk
battered onto stone
good are
stones that bite
and
lime
the
entire surface of the earth
melting with waves
like the sun
because the pulp wants sea
wants to bathe
so that the
mouthful
doesn’t
choke you
the clouds
biting
the
sky spreads its legs
to piss
so that
burnt poplars may drink
that
their bark thunders
the
earth spreads its legs
because
its depths thunder
“there planted
is the dead”, says the lightning
and the earth
like fire
or tar
eats carbon
eats
alone
and bites the
beast the herded wind
the
weaning calf
that was molting
and now’s a
woman’s mooing
as ants dance
about on its tongue as on a saint’s
bit the world
and so
you wouldn’t lose your realm
I
opened all of myself
and passed a
day in labor
arms open wide
and legs planted on the earth
there was
already
no difference
between the two
but still I
pushed
I bit
my hair like crazy
in order to
hang on and so the air
and
earth would calm
so the
roof of your house
would not be battered by stars
I pushed to
touch you
I bit
branches and roots
and
my fingers
and
toes
until
my teeth were gone
until
birth came into view
Ibringwhatiscalledthatsilencedthing
thatyoumaytouchitdon’tyousee
a
little moss and clay between my legs
and so the lump wouldn’t dry out
I got at it purely with tongue
and with my mouth printed
your body’s form
onto mine
the world is still good
although cruel
although
wounded the world
remains good
is good
is good
is very good
NOTE RE: <>
I began writing the long poem I call <> in 2008. To this date the first two volumes
(roughly 500 pages) of the work have been published in Mexico. The poem has
slowly taken shape as it’s been written. That is, the different strata that
emerge (personal, historical, mythological, scientific, etc) are a direct result
of a push towards an uncertain archeological and mythological consciousness
which has slowly revealed itself among the long prose passages, compressed word
segments, graphics, etc that seem to negotiate a space for themselves among
what a reader might otherwise recognise as “verse”. The later sections of the
poem delve deeper into this area, digging into the still ambiguous meaning of
the two primitive masculine and feminine symbols that make up the title, and
which I initially placed in contrast to each other by mere intuition. My hope
is that by revealing the process of its writing, the poem will lay bare a
particular movement within the fragments, , in which there is both a sense of
transformation, and of a struggle to reveal something which can only be exposed
through the writing itself.
I have been translating poetry into Spanish for 17 years,
and think of myself not only as a poet but as a translator. However,
translating one’s own work is a different thing. I don’t think one can ever
feel satisfied with the end result, simply because one is perhaps too attached
to a certain syntax and rhythm which underscores the original mental and verbal
impulse of the writing. There are very few passages which I’ve felt capable of
working out in English. For the present fragment I purposely avoided a
literal translation, as I felt that some of the sounds and nuances that one
finds in these "clusters" only develop at a very basic,
syllable-oriented level. I consider it a sort of "writing over" the
surface of the Spanish originals which obviously breathe differently.
RC,
June 2017
Ricardo
Cázares (Mexico
City, 1978) is the author of several collections of poetry including Drivethru,
Es un
decir, and the long poem simply titled <>. His work as a translator includes the
first complete Spanish translation of Charles Olson’s The Maximus
Poems, Maleza de luz, Selected Poems of Ronald Johnson, Robert
Creeley’s Pieces, John Taggart’s Peace On Earth, Truong Tran’s dust and
conscience, James Laughlin’s Remembering William Carlos Williams, and
a comprehensive anthology of the British Poetry Revival. He is an editor
and founding member of Mangos de Hacha Press, and the editor for the poetry and
arts journal Mula Blanca.
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