Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Nació en Palo Alto, California, en 1951.
Su primera colección de poemas, To The Place of Trumpets (1987), fue seleccionada por James Merrill para la Serie de Yale de Poetas jóvenes. Song (BOA Editions), que siguió en 1995, fue el 1994 Lamont Poesía Selección de la Academia Americana de Poetas. Su tercera colección, The Orchard (2004), fue finalista para el Premio Pulitzer de Poesía, el Premio del libro de Los Angeles Times, en poesía, y el National Book Critics Circle Award en poesía.
Selected Bibliography
To The Place of Trumpets (Yale University Press, 1987)
Song (BOA Editions, 1995)
The Orchard (BOA Editions, 2004)
Poems: Song and the Orchard (Carcanet Press Ltd, 2008)
HACIENDO LA COLADA EL DOMINGO
Así que esto es el Sabath, la calma
en el jardín, las magnolias
secándose en húmedas campanas, las enaguas
sobre la baranda del porche, mientras la bicicleta
gira renqueteante y el tulipán estalla como un pecho
sobre sus blusas rosas
para las manos que las presionan primero
como bulbos que se adentran en la tierra.
El pan, también, se enfría en el alfeizar
y los pinzones dispersan las abejas
en la estación de Shell donde un chico
en vaqueros azules observa el aceite
difuminarse en bufandas fosforecentes
sobre el cemento. Baña
su pincel en el balde y comienza
a extenderlo, haciendo pequeños círculos
y parando para salpicar a los niños
que, horas antes de que abra,
juegan con sus bolsas de fríjol fuera de la heladería
Parlor de Gantsy
mientras esperan que el color manche sus lenguas,
como yo espero el agua para la floración
detrás de mí, espuma blanca como de magnolias,
como de aves verdes y
amarillas que se bañan en el remanso de las hojas,
y, con movimiento
imperceptible lo logran todo.
*Traducción de Ana Gorría.
http://traducciones.lagallaciencia.com/
doing laundry on sunday
So this is the Sabbath, the stillness
in the garden, magnolia
bells drying damp petticoats
over the porch rail, while bicycle
wheels thrum and the full-breasted tulips
open their pink blouses
for the hands that pressed them first
as bulbs into the earth.
Bread, too, cools on the sill,
and finches scatter bees
by the Shell Station where a boy
in blue denim watches oil
spread in phosphorescent scarves
over the cement. He dips
his brush into a bucket and begins
to scrub, making slow circles
and stopping to splash water on the children
who, hours before it opens,
juggle bean bags outside Gantsy’s
Ice Cream Parlor,
while they wait for color to drench their tongues,
as I wait for water to bloom
behind me—white foam, as of magnolias,
as of green and yellow birds bathing in leaves—wait,
as always, for the day, like bread, to rise
and, with movement
imperceptible, accomplish everything.
Presentamos en Círculo de Poesía el poema Canción, de la poeta estadounidense Brigit Pegeen Kelly (1951-2016), en versión del escritor costarricense Gustavo Solórzano-Alfaro.
Canción
Escuchen: había una cabeza de cabra colgando en un árbol.
Toda la noche colgó ahí y cantó. Y aquellos que la oyeron
sintieron una herida en su corazón y creyeron que escuchaban
la canción de un pájaro nocturno. Se levantaron de sus camas
y luego se acostaron de nuevo. En el viento de la noche la cabeza de la cabra se balanceó de un lado a otro y desde lejos brillaba débilmente,
igual que la luna se reflejaba por millas en la línea del tren
junto a la cual yacía el cuerpo sin cabeza de la cabra. Unos muchachos
le cortaron la cabeza. Fue más difícil de lo que se imaginaron.
La cabra lloró como un hombre y les dio pelea. Pero ellos
terminaron el trabajo. Colgaron la cabeza sangrante cerca de la escuela
y después se fueron corriendo en la oscuridad que parece ocultarlo todo.
La cabeza colgó en el árbol. El cuerpo se quedó en las vías.
La cabeza llamaba al cuerpo. El cuerpo a la cabeza.
Se extrañaban mutuamente. La ausencia creció entre ellos,
hasta que arrancó el corazón del cuerpo, hasta
que el ahogado corazón voló hacia la cabeza, como las aves
de vuelta a su jaula y a la conocida percha donde trinan.
Entonces el corazón cantó en la cabeza, suave y luego fuerte;
cantó mucho rato y bajito hasta que la luz de la mañana apareció sobre
la escuela y el árbol; entonces el canto se detuvo.
La cabra perteneció a una muchachita. Le había puesto
Espina Rota Dulce Mora, nombrada así
por el arbusto de estrellas de la noche, porque el sedoso pelo de la cabra era oscuro como el agua de un pozo, porque tenía ojos como frutos silvestres.
La muchacha vivía cerca de una vía férrea elevada. En la noche
ella escuchaba el tren pasar, el dulce sonido del pito del tren
se derramaba suave sobre su cama, y cada mañana ella se levantaba
para darle a la cabra que balaba su balde de leche dulce. Le cantaba
canciones sobre muchachas con sogas y cocineros en barcos.
La peinaba con un peine duro. Soñaba diariamente
que la cabra se haría más grande, y lo hizo. Ella pensó
que su ensueño lo había logrado. Pero un día la muchacha no escuchó el tren y a la mañana siguiente se despertó ante un jardín vacío. La cabra
ya no estaba. Todo se veía raro. Era como si una tormenta
hubiese pasado mientras dormía, viento y piedras, lluvia
que arrancó las ramas frutales. Ella supo que alguien
había robado la cabra y que había venido a causar daño. Llamó
a la cabra. Toda la mañana y durante la tarde, llamó
y llamó. Caminó y caminó. En su pecho un mal presentimiento,
como el presentimiento de las piedras cuyos bordes se erosionan
bajo los pies descalzos. Entonces alguien encontró el cuerpo de la cabra
por la vía elevada, las moscas alrededor llenaban sus suaves botellas
en el cuello rasgado. Luego otro descubrió la cabeza
colgando en el árbol de la escuela. Se apresuraron
a ocultar las partes para que la muchacha no las viera.
Corrieron para recaudar plata para comprarle otra cabra.
Corrieron para encontrar a los responsables, para oírlos
decir que había sido una broma, nada más que una broma…
Pero escuchen: el punto es este. Los muchachos pensaron
en divertirse y listo. Fue más duro de lo que se imaginaron –ese tonto sacrificio– pero terminaron el trabajo.
Silbando mientras se lavaban sus grandes manos en la oscuridad,
lo que no sabían era que la cabeza de la cabra ya estaba
cantando tras ellos en el árbol. Lo que no sabían
era que la cabeza seguiría cantando, solo para ellos,
mucho después de que hubiesen bajado las sogas y que ellos aprendieran a escuchar;
balde tras balde, golpe tras golpe, ellos se despertarían
en la noche creyendo que escuchaban el viento entre los árboles
o un pájaro nocturno, pero su corazón latiría más rápido. Habría
un silbido, un zumbido, un murmullo fuerte, y al final, una canción.
La humilde canción que cantan unos muchachos perdidos que recuerdan el llamado de su madre.
No una canción cruel, no, no, para nada cruel. Esta canción
es dulce. Sí, es dulce. El corazón muere por su dulzura.
Song
Listen: there was a goat’s head hanging by ropes in a tree.
All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it
Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing
The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then
They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat’s head
Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly
The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away
Beside which the goat’s headless body lay. Some boys
Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined.
The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they
Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school
And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything.
The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks.
The head called to the body. The body to the head.
They missed each other. The missing grew large between them,
Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until
The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies
Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills.
Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder,
Sang long and low until the morning light came up over
The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped....
The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named
The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after
The night’s bush of stars, because the goat’s silky hair
Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit.
The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night
She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train’s horn
Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke
To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang
Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats.
She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily
That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming
Made it so. But one night the girl didn’t hear the train’s horn,
And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat
Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm
Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain
Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone
Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called
To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called
And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling
Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides
Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat’s body
By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles
At the goat’s torn neck. Then somebody found the head
Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take
These things away so that the girl would not see them.
They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat.
They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear
Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke....
But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have
Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they
Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job,
Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark.
What they didn’t know was that the goat’s head was already
Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn’t know
Was that the goat’s head would go on singing, just for them,
Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen,
Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would
Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees
Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There
Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song,
The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call.
Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song
Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.
The Satyr’s Heart
Now I rest my head on the satyr’s carved chest,
The hollow where the heart would have been, if sandstone
Had a heart, if a headless goat man could have a heart.
His neck rises to a dull point, points upward
To something long gone, elusive, and at his feet
The small flowers swarm, earnest and sweet, a clamor
Of white, a clamor of blue, and black the sweating soil
They breed in...If I sit without moving, how quickly
Things change, birds turning tricks in the trees,
Colorless birds and those with color, the wind fingering
The twigs, and the furred creatures doing whatever
Furred creatures do. So, and so. There is the smell of fruit
And the smell of wet coins. There is the sound of a bird
Crying, and the sound of water that does not move...
If I pick the dead iris? If I wave it above me
Like a flag, a blazoned flag? My fanfare? Little fare
with which I buy my way, making things brave? The way
Now I bend over and with my foot turn up a stone,
And there they are: the armies of pale creatures who
Without cease or doubt sew the sweet sad earth.
The Leaving
My father said I could not do it,
but all night I picked the peaches.
The orchard was still, the canals ran steadily.
I was a girl then, my chest its own walled garden.
How many ladders to gather an orchard?
I had only one and a long patience with lit hands
and the looking of the stars which moved right through me
the way the water moved through the canals with a voice
that seemed to speak of this moonless gathering
and those who had gathered before me.
I put the peaches in the pond’s cold water,
all night up the ladder and down, all night my hands
twisting fruit as if I were entering a thousand doors,
all night my back a straight road to the sky.
And then out of its own goodness, out
of the far fields of the stars, the morning came,
and inside me was the stillness a bell possesses
just after it has been rung, before the metal
begins to long again for the clapper’s stroke.
The light came over the orchard.
The canals were silver and then were not.
and the pond was--I could see as I laid
the last peach in the water--full of fish and eyes.
Rome
I saw once, in a rose garden, a remarkable statue of the Roman she-wolf and her twins, a reproduction of an ancient statue— not the famous bronze statue, so often copied, in which the blunt head swings forward toward the viewer like a sad battering ram, but an even older statue, of provenance less clear. The wolf had been cut out of black stone, made blacker by the garden’s shadows, and she stood in profile, her elegant head pointed toward something far beyond her, her long unmarked body and legs—narrower and more finely-boned than the body and legs of wolves as we know them—possessed, it seemed, of a great stillness, like the saturated stillness of the roses, but tightly-nerved, set, on the instant, to move. Under her belly, stood the boys, under her black breasts, not babes, as one might expect, but two lean boys, cut from the same shadowed stone as the wolf, but disproportionately small, grown boys no bigger than starlings, though still, like the wolf, oddly fine of face and limb, one boy pressing four fingers again one long breast, his other cupped beneath it to catch the falling milk, the second boy wrapping both arms around another breast, as if to carry it off, neither boy suckling, both instead turned toward you, dreamy, sweetly sly, as if to chide you for interrupting their feeding, or as if they were plotting a good trick… Beautiful, those boys among the roses. Beautiful, the black wolf. But it was the breasts that held the eye, a double row of four black breasts, eight smooth breasts, each narrowing to a strict point, piercing sharp, exactly the shape of the ivory tooth of the shark.
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