An extract from “Mourning Lu Yin” by Meng Chiao

Celestial immortals mourn such a sage-
Bones transformed, spirit becomes stars

Your poems all rising through heaven,
Sharpening constellations into bright

Clarities. Like the rarest ancient poems,
Your are pure spirit. We call ethereal

Poets of renown banished immortals,
Ascending and descending without end.

For in poems we’re made pure by death
And without them we live mean lives.

Struck metal’s the perfect song for you,
Song bequeathed all repose down all time.

Amor 77

Y después de hacer todo lo que hacen, se levantan, se bañan, se entalcan, se perfuman,
se peinan, se visten, y así progresivamente van volviendo a ser lo que no son.

Julio Cortazar

And after doing all they do they rise from their bed, they bathe, powder and perfume their persons, they dress, and gradually return to being what they are not.

Julio Cortazar

Frida en el Espejo / Frida in the Mirror

FRIDA EN EL ESPEJO
by Adrian Arias


Hoy me levanté temprano
más temprano que siempre –que nunca-
solo para verle la cara al día
y descubrir que sigo viva en flor

Dicen que estoy muerta pero
yo no les creo yo
soy una mujer de acero
mi cuerpo se quema con el agua
y arde en tus ojos la pasión del sol

Hoy mi cuerpo de hierbas se cubre
hoy mi carne es tu carne tu fuego
hoy mi soledad es tu danza
mi cabello tu esperanza

Si la vida te la arranca el tiempo
la pasión te la devuelve el viento

Yo que viajé en secreto hasta tu tiempo
(secreto)
trenzando tus sueños sin dueño
quiero darle color a tu alma
con el profundo azul de mi pincel pequeño

Ven mírame al espejo quiero verte descubrir
que tu también eres Frida
Matilde Aurora Meklit
Que también eres Ramona
Adelita y Valentina
la bella Rosa Marina, Tania, Eva y Trinidad

que tu eres la medicina que cura
la vida, el hambre y la locura

Tu que andas vendiendo flores – colores-
tu que andas masticando ilusiones
ven mírate al espejo quiero verte descubrir
tu Juana, tu Sofía, Irene Andrea Jazmín
a Diana Sabina Verónica y René
Sachiko, Amanda Mabel
Fátima Araceli Elena Laurita
Susana Ofelia Dolores Jamille
Iris Carolina Rosario Inés
Adriana Palomita y Anaís

Hoy me levanté temprano
para verte descubrir
tu soledad, mi soledad
que tu eres la fruta fresca
pintando tu realidad

Si la vida te la arranca el tiempo
la pasión te la devuelve el viento

-------
FRIDA AT THE MIRROR

Today I woke up early
earlier than usual –than ever
just to see the day’s face
and discover that I’m still alive blossoming

They say I’m dead but I don’t believe them
I am woman of steel and bone
my body burns with the water
and sun’s passion flames in your eyes

Today my body of herbs is covered
today my flesh is your flesh your fire
if time plucks your life
the wind will return your passion

I who painted my own reality
now paint your unowned dreams
come look at the mirror and discover
that you too are Frida, Carmen,
Nina, Matilde, Silvia, Meklit.
Magdalena, Rosa, Eva, Esperanza,
you are the medicine that cures
life, hunger and madness
Carolina, Tania, Clara, and Jazmin
carrying roots of the heart
carrying tomorrow in your smile

You that goes around selling flowers -colors-
you that goes around chewing illusions
you that goes around praying because there is no more
here I am because the journey is happy
look in the mirror and discover
that you too are Frida and Juana
Sonia, Irene, Andrea and Namaste
Sara, Marcela, Ana and Soledad
painting your own reality.


Adrian Arias 2008
translation by Nina Serrano

Childhood

It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely -and why?

We're still reminded-: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on

as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.

And became as lonely as a sheperd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Shadow and Light

A glimmer of sunshine passed my way
A piece of history marking the day
A mille-second of perfect fleeting joy
A lyrical note of cosmic rays

A sound of nature grabbed my ear
A foxes yelp against the moon
A canine echo of prehistoric time
A spooky reminder of natures rhyme

A touch of nettle burned my skin
A subtle reminder of nature’s sting
A Hawthorne bush and simple barb
A painful reminder of nature’s spite

A concrete edifice to man’s desire
An ugly monster rises to the stars
A grim reminder of capitalist greed
An apocalypse beckoned by human need

Poem and Photograph by Seamus Glynn