from Description of a Glowing Cobalt Blue
Jorge Esquinca
ALL remains to be told
the impulse in the feet
of that girl
María
rising
through the trees
in a leap
she perches
high in the branches
she swings
ever-moving
one to the next
from here to there
leaving her care
in other hands
all remains to be told
my father
believed truly in heaven
le gentil Nerval
would drag a crab
tied to a ribbon
one dawn
we found him
hung from a street-lamp
my father
believed truly in heaven
"read for me The Roses"
he asked in silence
from his bed at the hospital
how to forget the cold
of that dawn?
eighteen degrees below zero
death by hanging it was ruled
all the birds of Paris
shone at daybreak
motionless in their flight
dream is a second life
my father spoke in silence
and let go of the ribbon
that held the crab
all remains to be told
EVERY tree is a threshold
the heron crosses
knowing just when
—and she lands there
that there without name
which the heron intuits
in her way
she enters effortlessly
alights takes her leave
when she must
never before
never after
as though parting
were another portal
a tree that instinct delivers
and by nature she senses
i don't know how these things happen
speaks María de Jesús Crucificado
but the trees make themselves that little size
this the voice that read The Roses
beside a hospital bed
was the voice of a season
approaching
at once a bridge
and its passage
as though parting
were another way
to be
to take in
during the perfect time
on the unseen branch
of a tree we do not know
ONCE shadow
spilled from my mouth
i wrote
i am the sunless dark the widower
the unconsoled that wind
returns by night like a lullaby
once a wounded horseman
rode by my side
up the mountain
on his breast glowed the star
and his emblem was
the word Desdichado
my father spoke little he drove
a cobalt blue Vauxhall
across the low plains
he prayed at sunrise
once bought us a popsicle
in Manzanillo at the plaza
the cables of the streetlights
brought a sudden cover of sparrows
i thought myself a living hero
beneath the stares of the gods
a lone ranger on the plains
under a low sky always gray
i am driving toward the origin
my father spoke
in silence the crab
took him with its claws
at the throat
i could not hear him
shadow once
spilled from my mouth
—that voice spelled out
when was i left with the wound?
translated from the Spanish by Joshua Sperling