In Front of the Mirror: Four Poems
Translated from the Spanish by Anna Deeny Morales.
Mis manos
Estas manos mías conocen la ascensión suprema
y la más burda ignominia.
Son como dos relámpagos audaces
o como dos humildes golondrinas cautivas.
Se entrecruzan en una plegaria o aman
con santidad o con delirio
y se asustan del fuego
y chocan contra un rostro.
Estas manos mías saben mentir
y son urgentes. Me han dado la pasión sublime
y la ternura de un ángel de luz.
Tienen reminiscencias de ala desteñida
y saben de los surcos del vuelo.
Conocen todas las fiebres.
My Hands
These hands of mine know the ultimate ascent
and most foul ignominy.
They’re like two bold strikes of lighting
or two captive humble swallows.
They enfold in prayer or love
with piety or madness
and fire makes them afraid
and they knock into a face.
These hands of mine know how to lie
and are urgent. They’ve given me the sublime passion
and tenderness of an angel of light.
They’re reminiscent of a faded wing
and comprehend the furrows of flight.
They know every fever.
Mi casa y mi palabra
1
La casa no tiene ni paredes
ni puertas
pero es mi casa,
como mi caballo sin cascos,
mi caballo sin silla,
como mis sueños agrestes,
y la palabra al aire, volandera,
como esta garganta de nardos,
mi garganta.
Me monto sobre el alba
y descuartizo las rosas en la nada.
Mi rosa no tiene pétalos,
sólo espinas,
pero es mi rosa.
Mi palabra es áspera
y montaraz,
yo no tengo requiebros para nadie,
puedo regocijarme con las rosas
monto mis sueños y mi caballo.
Vivo en mi casa
y hablo con mi palabra.
2
Esta gardenia invencible
nace y crece.
Tiene olor y es blanca.
Es como todas las gardenias
y no parece estrella ni nada,
es como ella misma,
simplemente,
igual que yo soy ser humano
ella es gardenia.
3
Iconoclasta actitud de un cenicero
colmado de colillas y ceniza.
Mi cigarro se pasea entre el humo
con una certidumbre desusada.
La habitación está quieta
y yo siento la angustia de los días
que caminan.
Me envuelvo entre cortinas temblorosas,
siento la inquietud de las cosas
pasajeras
y me vivo con una fiera y oscura
desazón,
con una furia infinita,
mientras el cenicero sucio me vigila.
My House and Word
1
The house has no walls
no doors
but it’s my house,
like my horse with no hooves,
my horse with no saddle,
like my dreams coarse,
and the word to the wind, waving,
like this tuberose throat,
my throat.
I mount the dawn
and quarter roses in nothingness.
My rose doesn’t have petals,
only thorns,
but it’s my rose.
My word is harsh
and untamed,
I don’t have polite praise for anyone,
I can delight in roses
mount my dreams and horse.
I live in my house
and speak with my word.
2
This indomitable gardenia
is born and grows.
It’s white and has its scent.
It is like all gardenias
and doesn’t look like a star or anything,
she is like herself,
simply,
the same as I am human
she is gardenia.
3
Iconoclast attitude of an ashtray
full with stubs and ash.
My cigar strolls in the smoke
with an unusual certitude.
The room is quiet
and I feel the anguish of days
that walk.
I envelope myself in quivering curtains,
I feel the restlessness of fleeting
things
and I live myself with a wild and dark
unease,
with endless fury,
as the dirty ashtray watches me.
La noche
Qué edad, qué frío, qué tormenta
puede ser más terrible
que una noche
a solas,
una noche sin hada, una caverna
olvidada, un pasaje secreto, de hielo.
Y digo una noche a solas,
una noche de tiempo.
Y no hablo de sexo
ni del calor de un cuerpo,
no hablo de alguien, de algo
hablo de una noche a solas
frente al universo,
en el infinito,
a solas con el cosmos chispeante,
con las preguntas fósiles,
con nosotros mismos,
con todo.
The Night
What age, what cold, what storm
could be more terrifying
than one night
alone,
one night with no fairy, a forgotten
cave, a secret passage, of ice.
What I’m saying is a night alone,
a night with no time.
I’m not talking about sex
or the heat of a body,
I’m not talking about someone, or some thing
I’m talking about a night alone
facing the universe,
in the infinite,
alone with flickering cosmos,
with dug up questions,
with our own selves,
with everything.
Frente al espejo
Me pongo frente al espejo,
refleja mi cansancio,
mis ojeras,
mis manos impacientes,
mi camisa en desorden,
la boca desteñida,
el pelo despeinado,
pero no dice nada de mis sueños.
Mi habitación revuelta
surge de su pulida superficie
brillante,
mi despertar reciente
asalta mi cabeza entre sombras,
aún no atino más que a verme,
no pienso en mis poemas,
mi palabra no aparece
frente al espejo.
Sólo soy una imagen,
una más entre mis cosas,
una imagen callada
que respira silenciosa,
una imagen que no se mueve
y titubea entre la penumbra.
En ese recapacito,
me veo frente al espejo,
camino
y abro las ventanas del día.
(De Torres y Tatuajes, 1988)
In Front of the Mirror
I get in front of the mirror,
it shows how tired I am
the bags beneath my eyes,
my restless hands,
my rumpled shirt,
faded mouth,
unkempt hair,
but it says nothing of my dreams.
My disheveled room
emerges from its clean surface
brilliant,
the recent awakening
assaults my mind among shadows,
and still I don’t do more than see myself,
I don’t think of my poems,
my word doesn’t appear
in front of the mirror.
I’m just an image,
one more among my things,
one hushed image
that breathes silent,
an image that doesn’t move
and stutters among the gloom.
In it I reconsider,
I see myself in front of the mirror,
walk
and open the windows of the day.
(From Towers and Tattoos, 1988)
The poems found here by Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano were published in Mujer, desnudez y palabras, edited by Luz Méndez de la Vega (Guatemala, C.A., Aremis Edinter) in 2002; and Mujer, cuerpo y palabra: tres décadas de re-creación del sujeto de la poeta guatemalteca: muestra poética, 1973-2003 edited by Myron Alberto Avila (Madrid: ediciones Torremozas) in 2004.
Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano was born in Chiquimula, Guatemala, in 1945. She is a poet, novelist, journalist, and teacher. The 1954, US-backed military coup d’état forced Ruano to flee to Mexico with her family. The coup would eventually lead to the Guatemalan Civil War that lasted from 1960 to 1996. The family managed to return to Guatemala in 1957, and Ruano received her teacher’s diploma from the Educación Primaria Urbana in Chiquimula. In 1966, Ruano went back to Mexico and published her first book, Cariátides. Upon her return to Guatemala in 1967, she worked as a journalist, and in 1978, she received a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Languages and Literatures at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.
Anna Deeny Morales is a dramatist, translator of poetry, and literary critic. Original works for contemporary dance, theater, and opera include La straniera (1997); Tela di Ragno (1999–2002); Cecilia Valdés (2018); and La Paloma at the Wall (2019). Her one-act opera libretto, ¡ZAVALA-ZAVALA!: an opera in v cuts, recently commissioned by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and composer Brian Arreola, will debut in 2021. A 2018 National Endowment for the Arts recipient for the translation of Tala by Gabriela Mistral, Deeny Morales has translated works by Raúl Zurita, Mercedes Roffé, Alejandra Pizarnik, Nicanor Parra, Amanda Berenguer, Malú Urriola, and Marosa di Giorgio, among others. She received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at Harvard University and Dartmouth College. She currently teaches at Georgetown University, and her book manuscript, Other Solitudes, considers transamerican dialogues on consciousness and poetry throughout the last century.