Limestone

1

Barefoot at times
at other times shod
pearl without shell
shell without pearl

Silent at times
other times rowdy
as if ready
to take over the sky

Whether life appear
and as suddenly dissolve
like a stratagem

The light of limestone
can outdo the sum
of our celebrations

2

The majority of bones
lying scattered in the earth
are greatly in limestone's debt

Either for metamorphosis
for the resurrection of metals
or for the omnipresence of death

 

 

Sandstone

Landscape
and eyes
are one

Sand
and desert
are one

Heart
and witness
are one

They are an
ever eroding sign
which says

"No quantity
can exceed
the sky"–

 

 

Tezontle

According to the untrustworthy
slopes of both good and bad
etymologies

We might say
that the name 'tezontle'

Has something to do
with two-colored mirrors

Something to do
with the eyes of the volcanoes

Something to do
with the potter's song

And something as well with
the glyphs of abysses

 

Translation copyright © Joan Lindgren, 2005. Original poems copyright © Conaculta, 2003.

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Alberto Blanco's poems in this issue are drawn from El libro de las piedras (The Book of Stones), published in Mexico City by Conaculta in 2003. Born in Mexico City in 1951, he is the author of over twenty books of poetry, short stories and children's books. His Selected Poems in English translation appeared in 1995 from City Lights, San Francisco, under the title Dawn of the Senses. He is also a musician.

Joan Lindgren is a Fulbright Border Scholar, and lives on the US/Mexican Border. Unthinkable Tenderness: Selected Poems of Juan Gelman, which she edited and translated, was published by the University of California Press in 1997. Her translations of Alberto Blanco appeared in the anthology Reversible Monuments (Copper Canyon Press, 2003) and in various literary journals including Modern Poetry in Translation. An anthology of Spanish poets is currently under consideration for publication.