KIM GARCÍA
Poeta de Estados Unidos.
El poemario de Kim García Madonna Magdalena fue publicado por Turning libros Point en el otoño de 2006. Su trabajo ha aparecido en The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Atlanta Review, Rosebud, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Mississippi Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Subtropics, Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops, Negative Capability and Lullwater Review, entre otros. Ha logrado los premios de AWP Intro Writing Award, a Hambidge Fellowship, an Oregon Individual Artist Grant, and the 2009 XJ Kennedy Award.
Enseña escritura creativa en la Universidad de Boston.
VIGILIA PASCUAL
El obispo, el único hombre negro en esta iglesia sureña,
lleva la casulla dorada, enciende
el cirio que ilumina a los demás,
hasta que la iglesia se inunda de amarillo, vacilante luz,
cera barata amenazando con apagarse, el olor caliente
del material resistiéndose a convertirse en llama.
Aceite milagroso,
rosarios derretidos, archivadores ondulados.
Portazos contra las hogueras nocturnas.
Componemos este aleluya intermitente con campanas,
titubeando durante la bendición,
dispuestos a concedérnosla a nosotros mismos
y nunca concedida.
El gran cirio anual se sumerge en la fuente.
La cera se enfría en las marmóreas aguas.
El lector levanta sus brazos. Los bebés, que vienen a ser bautizados, lloran por la lentitud,
por su rígido embozo de Pascua, por el incienso
que chamusca el rastro de cera de las pequeñas manos de los niños
coloreando cuidadosamente el Cordero y los lirios.
Las palabras de bienvenida
presionan hacia abajo, casi enterrando la alegría con sus promesas
mientras que el cuerpo en la cruz
se distiende, como cualquier bailarín puede ver,
quemando mirra la oscura noche de esta primavera.
Versión de Carlos Alcorta
Easter Vigil
The bishop, the only black man in this Southern church,
carries the golden shepherd's crook, lights
the candle that lights another, and on,
until the church is filled with yellow, wavering light,
cheap wax threatening to gutter out, the hot smell
of material in resistance to becoming flame.
Grease of miracles,
beads of melt, snake to the cardboard holders.
The door gusts shut against the night's bonfire.
We're left this broken alleluia with bells,
this stumbling along to benediction,
willing ourselves to be finished,
and never finished.
The year's great candle is dipped in the fount.
Wax cools on the marble-cold waters.
The lector raises her arms.
Babies, come to be baptized, cry against the hour,
against their stiff Easter swaddling, against the incense
that scorches the waxy scent of small children's hands
carefully coloring the Lamb and lilies.
The language of arrival
presses down, nearly burying joy in its assurances
while the body on the cross
strains up, as any dancer can see,
burning this spring night's dark myrrh.
"Madonna Magdalene"
Genesis Suite: Cain
It is a fresh-fallen world,
and Cain is master of it.
First tooth, first step, first word.
He will be second in nothing.
The raw yoke of the sun
runs warm light over his downy back.
The stone floor is furred with gold.
Cain's day is fat and vigorous;
and what he sees, he possesses whole.
In the night his cradle rocks
under the open window
as he moves his heavy head,
round and white as the moon,
from side to side.
He dreams what all children will dream:
endless, indivisible dominion.
His small hands grip hard
against the rough cotton under his body.
Soft nails scratch quietly as they move.
The moonlight slides over his body
making the new down on his head
cold, bright silver
and all his body white with light.
Epiphany
We walk in paper crowns
around the darkened rooms
led by a dinner candle.
Sprinkling the last of the holy water,
singing the last Christmas songs.
The names of the three kings
are chalked over the lintel of the front door
under a sky sparsely lit with stars.
By faith, there is one for each child born tonight
but there is too much street light to see it.
Inside again, we sit in kitchen chairs
around Baby Jesus crowned in beeswax
standing in a velvet doll's chair.
The wise men in a three part tableau
of completion: walking, standing, kneeling.
Mary twists in her graceful s-curve of yielding.
My child lies long and heavy
with his head in the crook of my arm.
He traces the outline of my face,
remakes it with sweaty fingers,
smelling of dinner.
"Pax," I want to say to such love, “Uncle,” “I give up.”
You are the immovable object, you are the irresistible force.
On the way back from Halifax
we received word that Carlos had died/
carnations
diving into a pool, while his friends looked on, breaking his neck.
Pale blossoms, each balanced on a single jointed stem
My book was open to a poem by Roethke. The alders bowed.
And leaves curled back in elaborate Corinthian scrolls
My own son was in Berlin, beginning to mourn for the first time,
the air cool, as if drifting down from wet hemlocks,
Would we ever get him back? We were drifting,
or rising out of ferns not far from water—
nothing could be decided. We looked at the sea, clear of fog,
a crisp hyacinthine coolness.
Then as we drove up to the cottage the whales came
like that clear autumnal weather of eternity
On another day we would have said, what good luck! Oh Carlos,
The windless perpetual morning above a September cloud.
Bestiary of Desire: Heron
Pines, grown for paper, stiff as pencils.
The oaks at water's edge, curled against the salt.
Between groves, a single restless crow.
Long-legged heron, a graceful articulation
in water brackish as a kiss, tasting of more thirst,
the silent snap of its twigged legs, kindling.
It wraps the air before it in an embrace
of great wings that lifts its feet.
The air tastes of snails. Your skin is fresh water.
.
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