In homage to Elizabeth Bishop

1

The clouds glide so slowly
they cannot go in pursuit of day,
to follow its trail,
to call it by name.
Who are you? I asked.
There was no answer
but a great disturbance.
I made use of a piece of the mosaic
its grays, whites, metallic shades,
a moment from my life.
And I left for the encounter.
The little mist, lacking,
was dispersed little by little
to the beat of a radiant heart
that could not be mine.
Fleeting already, the forces tried also to flee,
but the unanimous chorus of the climate retained them
on the verge of forgetting themselves
and never finding space in the illusion,
to the doors
of the land,
of its plenty.
What solar mercy.

2

Sublime,
overwhelmed with abundance
to partake.

Like one who carries a basket
containing the pick of the season,
reluctant desires,
deep water, old,
born behind the rock
of the body that breathes.

Like one who touches the edge,
the horizon of day,
with one great need
to sit in place
and look upon the basket
gleaming with radiant fruit.
Who is known, then, as a guest
at those parties.
Who approaches the host.
Who smells his tunic and sandals,
his overwhelming majesty.
Who hears the beat of blood,
looks upon the soul
and discovers the senses
in the secret chambers
of that living sanctuary.

Like one who left a trail
and then erased it
with the eyes.

Like one who knew the path
and ceasing to be
was no longer.

Original poem copyright © Pura López-Colomé; translation copyright © Jason Stumpf, 2006.

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Pura López-Colomé lives in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She has published six collections of verse in Mexico, the most recent a Collected Poems entitled Música inaudita (Eds. Verdehalago, Mexico City, 2002). A selected poems, No Shelter, translated by Forrest Gander, appeared in English translation from Graywolf Press, St. Paul, MN in 2002. Shearsman Books will publish Jason Stumpf's translation of the volume Aurora, from which this poems is drawn, in 2007. Aurora was collected in Música inaudita.

Jason Stumpf teaches English and Creative Writing at Providence College in Rhode Island. His poems have recently appeared in LIT, Post Road, Natural Bridge, and elsewhere.