We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
Margarita Michelena Mexican 1917 – 1998
I
I have not come to say goodbye, sister, Although surroundings affirm your death. One evidence of you has been cancelled, One only: your body, That indication that united and contained you —dark net of time— Like the closed womb of the flower imprisons Its immortal family and in a precise dream Prepares its face of constant splendors. A certain morning, a finger of air Touches the arranged wall, Penetrates the heanvenly armor, Mocks mirrors. Alone, naked now, Lacking a foundation For its house of aromas, The tiny fist enlarges Its secret energies, Tears up its mystery And gives the wind everything it has: A laughing border of earth’s gown, A certainty of beauty. There it will have for the eye only a long silence. And beyond, working in the spring, Green living memories, May vocations.
So I’m thinking of you now, Thus I explain your passage, That’s how I know you have left One of your appearances, Left your summer hair, Left your smile and your flashing openness, Left your eyes Where the sea, in morning dress, Laughed wave by wave and tossed off Gentle flashes of foam.
Now you multiply in warm hollows In gardens of sweet humidities, In places of tenderness, In fields ringing with clover and bees, In time-lapses of blood, In circles of shadow softening the midday, In stones warmed by afternoon sun.
You shall return voices of child, cheek of girl, Tree of double kingdom—roots In hidden tasks, Music in the happy madness of the breezes—. By fruit and grasses you shall make your way And you shall draw near in their fragrance. You shall be the company the recluse meets Passing through the midnight of his soul And through one of these walls rising in the field And upon which moss installs its long softnesses. You shall be that born by groan and happiness And shall be in the joy of violated bone.
You shall come in each spiraling trill, In each thing morning returns to us, In the shy mirror of the poplar leaf, In the dry and happy whisper of wings, In the child who leaves with a kiss on its brow: You knew beforehand the dawn’s occupation.
II
Goodbye to the sad ones, the obscure. Not to you, sister. To live as you did was to deny death, To see a plant thrive on bare rock. Goodbye to the closed one, to the dried. Never goodbye to the rain. Till soon. Till soon. Until a child’s radiance. Until a rose.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 170th birthday.
Juan de Dios Peza Mexican 1852 – 1910
Watching Garrik – an actor from England – the people would say applauding: “You are the funniest one on earth and the happiest one…” And the comedian would laugh.
Victims of melancholy, the highest lords, during their darkest and heaviest nights would go see the king of actors and change their melancholy into roars of laughter.
Once, before a famous doctor, came a man with eyes so somber: “I suffer – he said -, an illness so horrible as this paleness of my face”
“Nothing holds any enchantment or attractiveness; I don’t care about my name or my fate I die living an eternal melancholy and my only hope is that of death”.
– Travel and distract yourself – I’ve traveled so much! – Search for readings – I’ve read so much! – Have a woman love you – But I am loved – Get a title – I was born a noble
– Might you be poor? – I have richnesses – Do you like compliments? – I hear so many! – What do you have as a family? – My sadness – Do you go to the cemeteries? – Often, very often.
– Of your current life, do you have witnesses? – Yes, but I don’t let them impose their burdens; I call the dead my friends; I call the living my executioners.
– It leaves me – added the doctor – perplexed your illness and I must not scare you; Take today this advise as a prescription only watching Garrik you can be cured.
-Garrik? -Yes, Garrik… The most indolent and austere society anxiously seeks him; everyone who sees him, dies of laughter; he has an amazing artistic grace.
– And me? Will he make me laugh? -Ah, yes, I swear it; he and no one but him; but… what disturbs you? -So – said the patient – I won’t be cured; I am Garrik! Change my prescription.
How many are there who, tired of life, ill with pain, dead with tedium, make others laugh as the suicidal actor, without finding a remedy for their illness!
Ay! How often we laugh when we cry! Nobody trust the merriment of laughter, because in those beings devoured by pain, the soul groans when the face laughs!
If faith dies, if calm flees, if our feet only step on thistles, the tempest of the soul hurls to the face, a sad lighting: a smile.
The carnival of the world is such a trickster, that life is but a short masquerade; here we learn to laugh with tears and also to cry with laughter.
We present this work in honor of the 550th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Nezahualcoyotl Mexican 1402 – 1472
You, azure bird, shining parrot, you walk flying. Oh Highest Arbiter, Life Giver: trembling, You extend Yourself here, filling my house, filling my dwelling, here.
With Your piety and grace one can live, oh Author of Life, on earth: trembling, You extend Yourself here, filling my house, filling my dwelling, here.
We present this work in honor of the 125th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Guillermo Prieto
Mexican
1818 – 1897
Your name, or sea, resounds within me; awakens my tired fantasy: move, enlarge my soul, of fervent enthusiasm fills it. Nothing limited compresses me, when I imagine contemplating your breast; alluvial, melancholic and serene, or august brow; thy mooing sublime. You will be oh sea! magnificent and great when you are sleeping in peace and quiet; when your breast is still and dilated caress the delicious atmosphere?
We present this work in honor of the 70th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Enrique Gonzalez Martinez Mexican 1871 – 1952
Its gaze filled my abyss, its gaze melted into my being, became so mine that I am doubtful if this breath of agony is life still or hallucinated death.
The archangel came, cast his sword upon the double laurel flourishing in the sealed garden….And that day brought back the shadow and I returned to my nothingness.
I thought the world, witnessing man’s appal, would crumble, overwhelmed beneath the ruins of the entire firmament crashing down.
But I saw the earth at peace, at peace the heavens, the fields serene, limpid the running stream, blue the mountain and the wind at rest.
In honor of the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, we present this work by one of modern Mexico’s most thoughtfully spiritual poets.
Amado Nervo Mexican 1870 – 1919
You who think I don’t believe when we two feud do not imagine my desire, my thirst, my hunger for God;
nor have you heard my desolate cry that echoes through the inner place of shadow, calling on the infinite;
nor do you see my thought laboring in ideal genesis, frequently in distress with throes of light.
If my sterile spirit could own your power of birth, by now — I would have columned heaven to perfect your earth.
But tell me, what power stows within a flagless soul to carry anywhere at all its torturer — who knows? —
that keeps a fast from faith, and with valiant integrity goes on asking every depth and every darkness, why?
Notwithstanding, I am shielded by my thirst for inquiry — my pangs for God, cavernous and unheard; and there is more love in my unsated doubt than in your tepid certainty.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
Elena Garro Mexican 1916 – 1968
There where we find the lost There where what was had goes There where the dead are dead and there are days when they revive and repeat the actions prior to their death There where cried tears are cried again without a cry and where intangible lips seek each other and are found already without a body There where we are suddenly children and we have a house and where cities are photographs and their monuments reside in the air and there are pieces of gardens attached to some eyes There where the trees are in the void where there are lovers and relatives mixed with familiar objects There where celebrations come after mourning births after deaths rainy days after sunny days There, lonely, without time, without childhood, comet without origin, a foreigner to the landscape strolling among strangers There you reside, where memory resides.
Translation by Adele Lonas, Olatz Pascariu, Silvia Soler Gallego, and Francisco Leal
In honor of Revolution Day, we present this work by one of contemporary Mexico’s cleverest poets.
Francisco Hinojosa Mexican b. 1954
Having just heard, my love, that you won a seat by popular vote, I am overwhelmed with joy for you and your electorate and because I know you well I am sure you will legislate with courage and devotion making your voters feel represented forget these household chores a while you don’t have a spouse for nothing and focus on the legislative charge assigned you receive the citizens’ demands attend the sessions ascend the podium assert your views hear out your committee chairman be yourself and above all legislate, legislate, legislate our bed will not feel the void caused by all those nights you work late, legislating you will receive a salary and they will give you bonds and business trips and cell phones and chauffeurs and try, my love, not to be corrupted try to stay honest because you, Honorable Representative woman of laws and convictions our advocate you are our voice in Congress although I did not vote for you forgive me but I never thought you’d win.
Poets Corner 