Inherence: Three Poems from Two Books
Translated from the Spanish by Anna Deeny Morales.
Inherencia
a mis hijos
No puedo ser la acacia,
y debería. La realidad
es siempre poca
y no parece
ser la última. Tampoco
la primera, que develaría
el hoy.
Hoy
he mirado la acacia y la sucia
combadura del pasto en la llovizna
sin atreverme
a comprenderlas.
Pero sé que debo amar
lo incomprensible, con este amor
improbable.
Ser persona
es estar desesperada
por los modos del amor y el nudo
donde lo dicho enmudece:
lo único
posible de las cosas es nombrarlas
en un rodeo sin fin mientras se mueven
de lugar.
Nuestra propia quietud
aquí
es delgada y grueso
el movimiento que alarga
la transición de ser a deshacer
la realidad
en imposibles: la idea de la rosa
en su buen uso
hace a la rosa posible
entre las horas
que la gravedad del cuerpo arrasa
en un girar de grupas vueltas
o volteadas.
Más allá se empaña
la reja de los años
del espejo donde antes
yo era verde.
Ahora
soy de ese color que el verde
toma con el tiempo y en el tiempo
abusa el ojo
del sujeto
de la rosa, de la acacia que deshoja
al azar el contratiempo
del género mujer-
hombre-
y objeto que soy cuando me nombro
así sujeta, que ni acorta,
ni descarta, ni parece
estar
pero presente.
(De Pasajes, 1984)
Inherence
for my children
I can’t be the acacia,
and I should be. Reality
is always scarce
and doesn’t seem
to be the last. Or
the first, to reveal
today.
Today
I looked at the acacia and the dirty
bend of grass below the light rain
without venturing
to comprehend them.
But I know that I should love
the incomprehensible, with this
improbable love.
To be a person
is to be desperate
for the ways of love and the knot
where what’s said falls mute:
the only
possible of things is to name them
in an endless roundup as they shift
place.
Our own quietude
here
is thin and thick
the movement that extends
the transition of being to undo
reality
in impossibles: the idea that the rose
in its good use
makes the rose possible
between hours
that the body’s gravity levels
in a sharp hinge of hindquarters turned
or bent.
Over there
the grid of years tarnishes
of the mirror where once
I was green.
Now
I am that color that green
takes with time and in time
abuses the eye
of the subject
of the rose, of the acacia that unleafs
randomly the setback
of that gender woman-
man-
and the object I am when I name myself
as subject, that neither cuts short
nor discards, nor seems
to be
but present.
(From Passages, 1984)
Mirta Rosenberg was born on October 7, 1951 in Rosario, Argentina, and passed away on June 28, 2019, in Buenos Aires. Her volumes of poetry include Pasajes (1984); Madam (1988); Teoría sentimental (1994); El arte de perder (1998); El árbol de palabras: obra reunida 1984–2006 (2006); El paisaje interior (2012); El arte de perder y otros poemas (2015); Cuaderno de oficio (2016); and Bichos, sonetos y comentarios, co-authored with Ezequiel Zaidenwerg (2017). Rosenberg has translated poetry and essays by Katherine Mansfield, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton, Dereck Walcott, Marianne Moore, Hilda Doolittle, W.H. Auden, James Laughlin, Seamus Heaney, and Anne Talvaz. In collaboration with Daniel Samoilovich, she translated Henry IV by William Shakespeare. Her poetry has been widely anthologized as well as translated into the German, French, and English.
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.