Unsent Letter (and two other poems)
Originals by Ángel José Fernández
Translated, from the Spanish, by Yasmín Rojas
Unsent letter
[A terrestrial message]
… love towards cherished ones is in you a lot more than in me. In you, it is a daily state, in me
it flowers after many tough fights with my bad
angel.
Lucila Godoy Alcayaga,
Letter to Manuel Magallanes Moure
I have, Angel for a name, a bad angel
that pushes me in its woes to the abysm.
It arrives and it mounts. It climbs the villages’ mountains
it plows through the backs of clouds, it travels through an air boat;
it governs my force: it confronts me with my bottomless reigns.
The day of the dissension from the heights you knew your fear,
of foliage and irrational nerve, and darkened forests.
Does it come from your house, of buried sidereal roots,
from the backyard or the garden? The camouflage comes with you,
placing a chain on your foot, silence to your silences.
Where is that well? Hidden between mists?
Under interior, reddened skin? Between your livid and fresh hands?
In the flushed shadow of the pine forest, and childhood hill?
It arrives and it mounts, that fear is agile, it gets tangled up with your step,
that avoids thickets, short cuts and wishes.
I have, Angel for a name, a devil against time,
a puddle made of dreams and courage.
Before you
Before you, a flood.
After you, shipwreck and orphan hood
upon the sea of your eyes, water islands.
There is no tempest or calmness in the premonition,
only silence and gleam with no words.
Antilitany
I will not find a new sea
in the island of your eyes.
I will not carve your ruin in this earth
that will only cover me a night.
My arms will not embrace
the moon’s agony.
I will stay in the shadow of your eyes.
–
Carta no enviada
[UN RECADO TERRESTRE]
…el amor a los seres está en Ud. mucho, mucho más que en mí. En Ud. es estado cotidiano, en mí florece después de luchas reñidas con mi ángel malo.
Lucila Godoy Alcayaga:
Carta a Manuel Magallanes Moure
Tengo, Ángel de nombre, un ángel malo
que me empuja en sus lances al abismo.
Viene y cabalga. Trepado va en los montes de la aldea,
surca en lomos de nube, viaja en un barco aéreo.
Mis ímpetus gobierna. Me enfrenta a sus dominios insondables
Aquel día del descenso a las alturas supiste de tu miedo,
de fronda y nervio irracional, y anochecidos bosques.
¿Proviene de tu casa, de enterradas raíces siderales,
del traspatio o del huerto? Aquí vienen contigo los embozos,
ponen cadena al pie, silencio a tus silencios.
¿Dónde estará ese pozo entre neblinas escondido?
¿Bajo piel interior, enrojecida? ¿Entre tus manos lívidas y frescas?
¿En la encendida sombra del pinar de la infancia?
Viene y cabalga, es ágil ese miedo; se enreda con tu paso,
que esquiva matorrales, atajos y deseos.
Tengo, Ángel de nombre, un diablo contra el tiempo,
un charco hecho de sueños y coraje.
Antes de ti
Antes de ti, el diluvio.
Después de ti, naufragios y orfandades
frente al mar de tus ojos, islas de agua.
No hay tempestad ni calma en el presagio,
sólo silencio y brillo sin palabras.
Antiletanía
No hallaré nuevo mar
en la isla de tus ojos.
No labraré tu ruina en esta tierra
que sólo ha de cubrirme en una noche.
No abarcarán mis brazos
la agonía de la luna.
Me quedaré en la sombra de tus ojos.
—
Ángel José Fernández was born in 1953 in Xalapa, Veracruz. He has published several poetry books. He is currently an academic in the PhD program of Latinamerican literature in the Universidad Veracruzana.
Yasmín Rojas Pérez was born in 1991 in Mexico City and is a Master’s graduate in Mexican Literature and translator.