Poesia kaiera
Errain baten argazkiak
1
Zuk, garai hartan neska eder Shreveport-en,
ilea hennaz tindaturik, azala mertxika-lore,
orduko erara eginarazten dituzu oraindik soinekoak,
eta jotzen duzu Chopin-en preludioa,
Cortot-ek deskribatu zuena: “Oroitzapen gozo-gozoak
memorian barna, perfumea bezala”.
Orain, gogamena desegiten zaizu ezkontza-tarta baten gisan,
astundurik alferrikako esperientziaz, oparo
susmoz, esamesaz, fantasiaz,
egitate hutsaren labanaren ahoaren mende
birrinduta. Zure bizitzaren lorean.
Larri, kopetilun, zure alabak
koilarak garbitzen ditu, beste modu batean hazten da.
2
Kafeontzia kolpez harraskan sartzean
aditu ditu aingeruak errietan, eta begiratu du
kanpora, baratze aratutik zeru zirtzilera.
Soilik astebete zera esan ziotela: Ez izan pazientziarik.
Hurrengoan, berriz: Izan aseezina.
Eta gero: Salba zaitez, besteak ezin salbatu dituzu-eta.
Utzi izan dio inoiz iturriko zurrustari besoa kiskaltzen,
pospolo bati hatz lodiko azazkala erretzen,
eta jarri izan du eskua teontziaren ahoan
lurrun lausoan bete-betean. Aingeruak bide dira, bai,
beste ezerk ez baitio jadanik minik egiten, salbu
goizero begietan sartzen zaion zikinkeria horrek.
3
Andre pentsakor bat, munstroekin lo.
Heltzen dion mokoa, horixe da bihurtzen. Eta Natura,
garaien eta usadioen kutxa hori,
tapaz estalia baina halere zabal,
gauza horiez denez beterik: laranja-lore lizunduak,
emakumeentzako pastillak, Boadizearen bular terribleak
azeri-buru zapalen eta orkideen azpian.
Bi emakume eder, eztabaida betean,
biak harro, bizkor, sotil, aditzen ditut oihuka
beira landuan eta maiolikan barna
harrapariak zokoratutako furiak bezala:
eztabaida bat ad feminam, bizkarrean herdoildu zaizkidan
aizto zahar guztiak sartzen dizkizut zuri,
ma semblable, ma soeur!
5
Dulce ridens, dulce loquens,
andrea hankak depilatzen, geratzen zaizkion arte
mamut-letagin petrifikatu bat bezain distiratsu.
7
Mundu ziurgabe honetan lekuren bat edukitzea
inork suntsitu ezin duena: hori
guztiz da garrantzitsua.
Hala idatzi zuen
emakume erdi ausart eta erdi on hark
erdi ulertzen zuen hura borrokatu zuenak.
Inguruko gizon gutxik egin nahi edo ahal zuen gehiago,
eta horregatik deitu zioten harpia, sorgin zahar eta puta.
8
“Denak hiltzen zarete 15 urtetan”, esan zuen Diderotek,
eta bihurtu erdi kondaira, erdi konbentzio.
Halere, begiek amets dagite lauso
lurrunez zuritutako leiho itxiez harago.
Goxo, izan gintezkeen guztia,
izan ginen guztia —sua, malkoak,
adimena, gustua, anbizio martirizatua—,
nahasten da adulterio ukatuaren oroimena bezala
gure helduaroaren bular zimel ahitua bezala.
9
Kontua ez dela ondo egitea
baizik egite hutsa? Bai, pentsa
zenbat aukera! Edo ahaztu betiko.
Ume goiztiarraren luxu hau,
Denboraren elbarri kroniko preziatuarena…
uko egingo al genioke, maiteok, ahal bagenu?
Gure sinekura izan dugu madarikazio:
aski genuen talentu hutsa,
distira zenbait zatitan eta zirriborrotan.
Hasperen gehiagorik ez, andreok.
Denbora gizonezkoa da
eta ederren alde topa egiten du bere kopaz.
Konplimenduekin zurtuta, aditzen ditugu
goresten gure erdipurdikeriak,
pairamentzat hartzen gure soraiokeria,
intuizio estilotsutzat jotzen gure zabarkeria,
barkatzen gure hanka-sartze oro; gure krimena
ez da itzal handiegia egitea baizik
moldea kolpean puskatzea baizik.
Eta horretarako, konfinatze bakartua,
negar-gasa, akitu arteko bonbardaketa.
Izangai gutxi ohore horretarako.
Snapshots of a daughter-in-law
1
You, once a belle in Shreveport, / with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud, / still have your dresses copied from that time, / and play a Chopin prelude / called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections / float like perfume through the memory." // Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, / heavy with useless experience, rich / with suspicion, rumor, fantasy, / crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge / of mere fact. In the prime of your life. // Nervy, glowering, your daughter / wipes the teaspoons, grows another way.
2
Banging the coffee-pot into the sink / she hears the angels chiding, and looks out / past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky. / Only a week since They said: Have no patience. // The next time it was: Be insatiable. / Then: Save yourself; others you cannot save. / Sometimes she's let the tapstream scald her arm, / a match burn to her thumbnail, // or held her hand above the kettle's snout / right in the woolly steam. They are probably angels, / since nothing hurts her anymore, except / each morning's grit blowing into her eyes.
3
A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. / The beak that grips her, she becomes. And Nature, / that sprung-lidded, still commodious / steamer-trunk of tempora and mores / gets stuffed with it all: the mildewed orange-flowers, / the female pills, the terrible breasts / of Boadicea beneath flat foxes' heads and orchids. // Two handsome women, gripped in argument, / each proud, acute, subtle, I hear scream / across the cut glass and majolica / like Furies cornered from their prey: / The argument ad feminam, all the old knives / that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours, / ma semblable, ma soeur!
5
Dulce ridens, dulce loquens, / she shaves her legs until they gleam / like petrified mammoth-tusk.
7
"To have in this uncertain world some stay / which cannot be undermined, is / of the utmost consequence." / Thus wrote / a woman, partly brave and partly good, / who fought with what she partly understood. / Few men about her would or could do more, / hence she was labeled harpy, shrew and whore.
8
"You all die at fifteen," said Diderot, / and turn part legend, part convention. / Still, eyes inaccurately dream / behind closed windows blankening with steam. / Deliciously, all that we might have been, / all that we were —fire, tears, / wit, taste, martyred ambition— / stirs like the memory of refused adultery / the drained and flagging bosom of our middle years.
9
Not that it is done well, but / that it is done at all? Yes, think / of the odds! or shrug them off forever. / This luxury of the precocious child, / Time's precious chronic invalid,— / would we, darlings, resign it if we could? / Our blight has been our sinecure: / mere talent was enough for us— / glitter in fragments and rough drafts. // Sigh no more, ladies. / Time is male / and in his cups drinks to the fair. / Bemused by gallantry, we hear / our mediocrities over-praised, / indolence read as abnegation, / slattern thought styled intuition, / every lapse forgiven, our crime / only to cast too bold a shadow / or smash the mold straight off. // For that, solitary confinement, / tear gas, attrition shelling. / Few applicants for that honor.