^{translated from the Spanish by Andrés Fernández}

^{(to my sister)}

(the deafening
sound
of the sea
comes 
between
us both)

I say to her:
I think
we’re
drowned

she replies:
no
We’re not
drowned

I say to her:
we’re lying
side by side
at the bottom
of the sea

she replies:
no
We are standing
on the shore

I say to her:
I truly
believe
we’ve
already drowned

she replies:
no
We are
breathing
just fine

I say to her:
for me
no 
air
comes
in

she replies:
I have air
for both of us

desacuerdo

 ^{(a mi hermana)} 

(el rugido 
ensordecedor
del mar 
se interpone
entre 
las dos)
  
yo le digo:
creo 
que estamos 
ahogadas
  
ella responde:
no 
No estamos 
ahogadas

yo le digo:
yacemos 
a la par 
en el fondo 
del mar

ella responde:
no 
Estamos de pie 
en la orilla
  
yo le digo:
de verdad 
creo 
que ya 
nos ahogamos
  
ella responde:
no 
Estamos 
respirando 
muy bien

yo le digo:
a mí 
no 
me 
entra 
aire
  
ella responde:
Yo tengo aire
para las dos

I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

My father read a mountain aloud.

Opened to a page 
where a green bird lands on a thunderclap.

Named for the billowing hands of 
brittle blue flowers.

As if the unfinished poetry of the paraffin

is pulled aside like scenery, 
so that I may write by the only light I know.

My father read only his one life and recited 
the last line over and over.

The book is written in giant letters of fog 
that wander like goats across the alpine pastures.

The moon is dog-eared as if the treetops looking up 
have studied the idea of love too much.

On a page with some scattered pine needles, 
a voice goes on calling out to me.

My father learned to read 
in a one-room schoolhouse,

and never read a poem.

A little herd of lightning 
gets spoken out loud in the dark.

Change 
is scenic and sudden.

One year, I came home 
and all the leaves fell off my father.

After that, 
he was winter.

Wearied of its own turning,
Distressed with its own busy restlessness,
Yearning to draw the circumferent pain—
The rim that is dizzy with speed—
To the motionless centre, there to rest,
The wheel must strain through agony
On agony contracting, returning
Into the core of steel.
    And at last the wheel has rest, is still,
Shrunk to an adamant core,
Fulfilling its will in fixity.
But the yearning atoms, as they grind
Closer and closer, more and more
Fiercely together, beget
A flaming fire upward leaping,
Billowing out in a burning,
Passionate, fierce desire to find
The infinite calm of the mother’s breast.
And there the flame is a Christ-child sleeping,
Bright, tenderly radiant;
All bitterness lost in the infinite
Peace of the mother’s bosom.
But death comes creeping in a tide
Of slow oblivion, till the flame in fear
Wakes from the sleep of its quiet brightness 
And burns with a darkening passion and pain,
Lest, all forgetting in quiet, it perish.
And as it burns and anguishes it quickens,
Begetting once again the wheel that yearns—
Sick with its speed—for the terrible stillness
Of the adamant core and the steel-hard chain.
And so once more
Shall the wheel revolve, till its anguish cease
In the iron anguish of fixity;
Till once again 
Flame billows out to infinity,
Sinking to a sleep of brightness
In that vast oblivious peace.