Selección de poemas del libro Diseño del ala (Ediciones Callejón, 2005).
Lezama
Y toda siembra que nos hace temblar se hace en el espacio sin respuesta, que al fin es una respuesta.
—José Lezama Lima
I
En vez del cuerpo,
sublime música. Envés del signo
el viento por detrás soplando recio,
ocaso empurpurado, nube caníbal.
Y de las alucinaciones,
lo que tienen de sed.
Me acojo al silencio de esta bóveda
con su millar de estrellas.
Sonrisa etrusca, bizantina, viajera,
fastos quemados del fervor.
Noche estrellada,
místico acorde roto sobre intenso azul
en un fragmento de la Sainte Chapelle.
Ardor suspenso genuflexo.
¡Ah, que no escape!
II
Se acumula la tinta en esta sima
que se prolapsa con el desbordamiento.
Sufre la sorpresa el abrillantamiento de la nuez
hecha almíbar en la boca juguetona de una nave a la deriva.
Eleva su lengua hasta tocar el cielo de la boca
chasquea la sílaba entintada
echa al mar. Regocijada en la marea nocturna
de esta ínsula, el protocolo de su carnalidad gravita hacia la imagen.
Tensa su ronda de destellos
sujeta a la morada perpetua de la gracia.
III
Ausente de los hechos fluye el vértigo,
pasan las aguas tibias en que la nada
alardea de signos impalpables:
sepultos sones siempre volátiles,
ala de tinta.
La anunciación
El arco no es más que una fuerza sostenida por dos debilidades.
—Leonardo da Vinci
En esa mano enhiesta
figura la pieza botánica de un lirio
que se interpone entre sus miradas.
Esa otra mano ya no es mía.
Tampoco los pinos demasiado verdes y simétricos
que conducen la vista hacia los botes.
La carnada se arroja con la cuerda o la línea.
Siempre hay un pescador que recoge su malla
cuando atardece. Una vez pescó alas,
otras, materia para el escabeche o el sancocho.
Vio los cardúmenes, creyó en las rachas que lo remontarían
hacia otra parte
y gareteó en las aguas quietas de los remansos.
Confía en los paisajes de la tradición
en la cosa mentale
en la efímera música. Todo con
fluye en la debilidad de los arcos.
Los pinos no se cimbrean en ese espacio sin viento
y la mano que no es mía sujeta con terror un lirio transparente
que no quiere ofrecer. Acaso la inclinación vertical de esa mano
lo diga todo. Sujeta sin sujeto.
El campo roceado en verde oscuro con diminutas flores,
ya no concibo si fue mío en el tapiz
o en ese plano que sostiene los pliegues
que forman el contorno de un cuerpo
que estudié y no conozco.
No bastaría mirar para advertir
en qué consiste su atracción o su distancia.
Quizá lo más artístico sea esperar
para apreciar el todo, su misterio.
Lección de estética: el salto
El desarrollo de esa flexibilidad se halla
en la capacidad de la coyuntura para sostener cierto peso.
Así también la voz, que sin el cuerpo no accede al espíritu.
Sin ese umbral no hay voz,
sin el cuerpo no se entra en la luz.
El impacto del salto sobre el gozne es violento.
El dolor se mitiga en el aire,
como el rocío cuando disimula una lágrima
o cuando un arcoiris descomunal eclipsa al alba.
La intensidad resulta de la libertad que la desata.
Desde afuera se mira difuminada la visión
por el sonido de la música que la involucra en gasas
y camuflagea, asistida por los compases,
el fulgor con que el pie lamina el piso de madera
o la voz hiere la barrera del sonido,
acumulando en el regreso de la onda el impacto todo de aquel cuerpo.
El espectador es abstraído del esfuerzo
por milagro del marco que circunda su éxtasis.
Esa distracción que lo sustrae del golpe
le permite apreciar el esplendor:
cuando el todo se hunde en el silencio de un mapa de estrellas.
Pero las vendas sangran,
las uñas se encarnan, el cuerpo duele,
los ojos arden, la piel se agrieta,
las manos tiemblan y el alma se desgasta.
La voz,
hay que esforzarse porque no se rompa en el extremo
de su disciplina o su fervor, al borde de su opio.
En esa pausa, en ese sueño obsceno
donde quisiera entregarse a lo real,
una herida coagula:
allí donde se crea el arco
y se empurpura el signo.
De un lado, entonces,
el desconsuelo con que imagino al viento
puliendo un promontorio,
así como se borran las sales de una piel.
Del otro, el tiempo que toma contemplarlo.
4.12.2005
Coralie Duchesne
The Bat
The town was set in a narrow horseshoe shaped valley between low mountains, which Caitlin believed trapped the heat, air, and humidity. Although the house Lorenzo had found for them was not far from the sea no cooling breezes reached them. The sun blazed most of the day through the long line of windows in the front of the house. Sudden downpours of rain brought brief relief then the sun would blaze forth again. Their neighbours were two ancient twin sisters. Desiccated, stiff limbed as two grasshoppers they circled the house numerous times a day, spying on Caitlin.
Lorenzo had brought her and the four children to the house and the town sight unseen. His description had made it sound appealing to Caitlin who interpreted the description, (as she usually did) through novels, or paintings she knew; the town was near a beach, in a landscape of mountains and trees and had a population of over sixty thousand. She discovered Lorenzo had omitted significant details from what he told her, (as he usually did.)
The town was famous for a hurricane that had destroyed much of it. The hurricane and its aftermath of rebuilding had turned the town centre into a jumble of flat roofed concrete boxes among pocked streets where mangy dogs sniffed at discarded beer cans and plantain chip bags and the town drunks sprawled wherever they could find some shade. Most of the inhabitants of the town lived, as they always had up in the mountains. The beach consisted of a tiny cove.
In the first weeks after their arrival Caitlin went on expeditions around town, pushing the baby in the stroller with the other three children in tow. This bewildered the townsfolk who were unused to anybody but the wretchedly poor walking on foot anywhere they could use a car. People asked her if something was wrong, could they help? When she told them she ‘liked walking’ rumours abounded, as they touched their foreheads with a finger, that the doctor’s wife was ‘un poquito trastornada’-- crazy.
She quickly had to adjust all her imagined visions of an ochre and pink town splashed with hibiscus flowers, a white washed colonial church in a plaza full of flirting couples or strolling families in the evenings, lively side walk cafés. The church was a drab concrete building with metal blinds and an ugly little Madonna. La plaza was a concrete square without a single tree. A sweating Spanish priest reminded her sombrely that he had not yet seen her or her family at Sunday mass. Instead of side walk cafés there were the racket and fumes from the ‘publicos’; these were the taxis which served in lieu of a bus service and the drivers operated their business with radios blasting in front of the plaza.
“I should have asked more questions before agreeing to come here,” Caitlin told Lorenzo.
He was puzzled. “I gave you all the facts.” In any case fresh out of his internship, already with four kids, he urgently needed a hospital position. “Be realistic, Caitlin!”
She wrote letters to friends from her student days where she described quaint things about the town. When she re-read them she wanted to cry and never sent them. Her friends, her past were lost.
Caitlin had encountered Lorenzo when they were squeezed together on a crowded bus in Madrid, where Lorenzo’s parents had sent him to study medicine and where she had come on a summer course with a group of art students. He stared down at her and followed her off the bus. She found this sinister but liked his brown compact body, (which reminded her of an Aztec statue) enough to pause when he spoke to her. Ignoring the dismay of both their families they were married eight months later.
If she tried to explain to him now how she felt about life as she had known it sliding away Lorenzo would never understand the terms she used. He liked words that were exact and inescapable like the names of diseases. They had never had real conversations. She accepted the silences between them because hadn’t she found him attractive because of his likeness to an Aztec statue? Statues are mute and unbending.
Lorenzo often returned late. After the children were in bed Caitlin would sit out on the balcony. There was a solitary tree on the corner of the street. Once it began to grow dark there would be a soft whirring sound as a dark cloud twirled round and round the tree. These were the bats. Lorenzo didn’t know why but this was a bat custom. At first she was scared, spooked by stories she had heard as a child of bats that flew into women’s long hair and nested there, making them go mad, or of blood sucking bats that would silently suck the life out of a sleeping couple. Lorenzo laughed, the bats here were harmless. Besides they would never enter the house. Gradually she could watch them calmly. They were never there in the morning; seemingly they flew off to some bat world when dawn broke.
But one morning after Lorenzo’s departure when Caitlin was giving the children breakfast she heard a scuffling in the living room. She told the children to hush-- a mouse? She took a slipper from her daughter and opened the front door. If she threw the slipper at the mouse it would flee through the door. The children perked up, excited. She aimed the slipper at the sound. No mouse ran out, more scuffling. The children giggled. Caitlin approached the sofa warily. The children craned to get a look. Caitlin peered round the sofa and screamed.
It was a bat, fluttering feebly on the floor, one webbed wing damaged. It must have entered at night when they left the front door open before going to bed. Caitlin found the thought of it flying about the house while they all slept repulsive. The bat struggled upwards and pitched towards her. In a panic she rushed to snatch up the baby, yelling at the children to run to the bedroom. Scared now by her fear they scrambled after her, a chair was knocked over, a glass of milk spilt.
They huddled on the bed confused. Was the bat really dangerous? Caitlin was embarrassed but could not bring herself to face the bat again. They would wait here for papi to come home for lunch while she entertained them with stories of--what else--bats.
This was where Lorenzo found them to his huge amusement.
“Watch me!” They looked on from a safe distance as Lorenzo got the broom from the kitchen and advanced on the bat, which was now only twitching on the floor. He took two swings at the bat then swept the remains out the door. The children were tearful, not certain they had wanted the bat dead.
“Everything is all right,” Lorenzo said. “Everything is fixed”. He put his arms around Caitlin. “See, everything is all right now.”
© Coralie Duchesne
1205-65 Sherbrooke East,
Montreal, QC., H2X 1C4
(514) 287-9335
xanadu@magma.ca
The town was set in a narrow horseshoe shaped valley between low mountains, which Caitlin believed trapped the heat, air, and humidity. Although the house Lorenzo had found for them was not far from the sea no cooling breezes reached them. The sun blazed most of the day through the long line of windows in the front of the house. Sudden downpours of rain brought brief relief then the sun would blaze forth again. Their neighbours were two ancient twin sisters. Desiccated, stiff limbed as two grasshoppers they circled the house numerous times a day, spying on Caitlin.
Lorenzo had brought her and the four children to the house and the town sight unseen. His description had made it sound appealing to Caitlin who interpreted the description, (as she usually did) through novels, or paintings she knew; the town was near a beach, in a landscape of mountains and trees and had a population of over sixty thousand. She discovered Lorenzo had omitted significant details from what he told her, (as he usually did.)
The town was famous for a hurricane that had destroyed much of it. The hurricane and its aftermath of rebuilding had turned the town centre into a jumble of flat roofed concrete boxes among pocked streets where mangy dogs sniffed at discarded beer cans and plantain chip bags and the town drunks sprawled wherever they could find some shade. Most of the inhabitants of the town lived, as they always had up in the mountains. The beach consisted of a tiny cove.
In the first weeks after their arrival Caitlin went on expeditions around town, pushing the baby in the stroller with the other three children in tow. This bewildered the townsfolk who were unused to anybody but the wretchedly poor walking on foot anywhere they could use a car. People asked her if something was wrong, could they help? When she told them she ‘liked walking’ rumours abounded, as they touched their foreheads with a finger, that the doctor’s wife was ‘un poquito trastornada’-- crazy.
She quickly had to adjust all her imagined visions of an ochre and pink town splashed with hibiscus flowers, a white washed colonial church in a plaza full of flirting couples or strolling families in the evenings, lively side walk cafés. The church was a drab concrete building with metal blinds and an ugly little Madonna. La plaza was a concrete square without a single tree. A sweating Spanish priest reminded her sombrely that he had not yet seen her or her family at Sunday mass. Instead of side walk cafés there were the racket and fumes from the ‘publicos’; these were the taxis which served in lieu of a bus service and the drivers operated their business with radios blasting in front of the plaza.
“I should have asked more questions before agreeing to come here,” Caitlin told Lorenzo.
He was puzzled. “I gave you all the facts.” In any case fresh out of his internship, already with four kids, he urgently needed a hospital position. “Be realistic, Caitlin!”
She wrote letters to friends from her student days where she described quaint things about the town. When she re-read them she wanted to cry and never sent them. Her friends, her past were lost.
Caitlin had encountered Lorenzo when they were squeezed together on a crowded bus in Madrid, where Lorenzo’s parents had sent him to study medicine and where she had come on a summer course with a group of art students. He stared down at her and followed her off the bus. She found this sinister but liked his brown compact body, (which reminded her of an Aztec statue) enough to pause when he spoke to her. Ignoring the dismay of both their families they were married eight months later.
If she tried to explain to him now how she felt about life as she had known it sliding away Lorenzo would never understand the terms she used. He liked words that were exact and inescapable like the names of diseases. They had never had real conversations. She accepted the silences between them because hadn’t she found him attractive because of his likeness to an Aztec statue? Statues are mute and unbending.
Lorenzo often returned late. After the children were in bed Caitlin would sit out on the balcony. There was a solitary tree on the corner of the street. Once it began to grow dark there would be a soft whirring sound as a dark cloud twirled round and round the tree. These were the bats. Lorenzo didn’t know why but this was a bat custom. At first she was scared, spooked by stories she had heard as a child of bats that flew into women’s long hair and nested there, making them go mad, or of blood sucking bats that would silently suck the life out of a sleeping couple. Lorenzo laughed, the bats here were harmless. Besides they would never enter the house. Gradually she could watch them calmly. They were never there in the morning; seemingly they flew off to some bat world when dawn broke.
But one morning after Lorenzo’s departure when Caitlin was giving the children breakfast she heard a scuffling in the living room. She told the children to hush-- a mouse? She took a slipper from her daughter and opened the front door. If she threw the slipper at the mouse it would flee through the door. The children perked up, excited. She aimed the slipper at the sound. No mouse ran out, more scuffling. The children giggled. Caitlin approached the sofa warily. The children craned to get a look. Caitlin peered round the sofa and screamed.
It was a bat, fluttering feebly on the floor, one webbed wing damaged. It must have entered at night when they left the front door open before going to bed. Caitlin found the thought of it flying about the house while they all slept repulsive. The bat struggled upwards and pitched towards her. In a panic she rushed to snatch up the baby, yelling at the children to run to the bedroom. Scared now by her fear they scrambled after her, a chair was knocked over, a glass of milk spilt.
They huddled on the bed confused. Was the bat really dangerous? Caitlin was embarrassed but could not bring herself to face the bat again. They would wait here for papi to come home for lunch while she entertained them with stories of--what else--bats.
This was where Lorenzo found them to his huge amusement.
“Watch me!” They looked on from a safe distance as Lorenzo got the broom from the kitchen and advanced on the bat, which was now only twitching on the floor. He took two swings at the bat then swept the remains out the door. The children were tearful, not certain they had wanted the bat dead.
“Everything is all right,” Lorenzo said. “Everything is fixed”. He put his arms around Caitlin. “See, everything is all right now.”
© Coralie Duchesne
1205-65 Sherbrooke East,
Montreal, QC., H2X 1C4
(514) 287-9335
xanadu@magma.ca
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