Nervous-system tracings of rivers before dams—

to map watercourses is to diagram human hands

running in fingers to deltas. Neosho, Kaw,

Cimarron, Verdigris, Arkansas, Chickaskia.

Flood flow in spring, summer languid. Call

their names—conjure those whose language

they carry. Memory exists in nerves, lives in

rivers like silver-scaled great-horned serpent,

basilisk who admonishes our failures. Metaphor

reminds us that humans subsisted along rivers

immemorial. Recall, then, those dead metaphors,

breathe them back to life—river of time, river

of memory, river of life, river of blood, river of

song, river of death. River of contempt. Not the

same river, not the same woman—Heraclitus’

axiom along cattail-encumbered bank. Honor

rivers’ meanders, their currents our late-night

reveries that roar, crawl along, rush downstream,

and overflow, leaving mica scales behind. How

rivers sometimes get lost. How we all get lost.

we are in an ark
 

not a passport in hand
 

    tinted windows and air the taste of spit  

and body oils     the pregnant woman

squeezes her abdomen     the child will not  die

in the middle of a journey   too weak   to jump  

into the sharks     no emissary in sight   we want to sing

can barely clap     a groan rises from our ribs  broken

we lick the sweat     from each other’s sweat  the mother chews

on her placenta  she wants to share  but  we allow her greed

we laugh  the wind    responds     

we pray  into    our mouths  only the breath    in God  in us

makes music    of our meditations  we mark the distance

from  our mother’s     nipples with these    fragile fingernails

what we see     in each other’s spirits  is fear    I must have

two left    the Liverpool rocks roll like they fell from an archangel’s

vineyard    what praise can we give    with bound hands

they still     out talk      with a reason    of existence

in pairs     they drag us     out like animals

^{translated from the Spanish by William George Williams}

Lord, I ask a garden in a quiet spot
where there may be a brook with a good flow,
an humble little house covered with bell-flowers,
and a wife and a son who shall resemble Thee.

I should wish to live many years, free from hates,
and make my verses, as the rivers
that moisten the earth, fresh and pure.
Lord, give me a path with trees and birds.

I wish that you would never take my mother,
for I should wish to tend to her as a child
and put her to sleep with kisses, when somewhat old
she may need the sun.

I wish to sleep well, to have a few books,
an affectionate dog that will spring upon my knees,
a flock of goats, all things rustic,
and to live off the soil tilled by my own hand.

To go into the field and flourish with it;
to seat myself at evening under the rustic eaves,
to drink in the fresh mountain perfumed air
and speak to my little one of humble things.

At night to relate him some simple tale,
teach him to laugh with the laughter of water
and put him to sleep thinking that he may later on
keep that freshness of the moist grass.

And afterward, the next day, rise with dawn
admiring life, bathe in the brook,
milk my goats in the happiness of the garden
and add a strophe to the poem of the world.

Señor, yo pido un huerto 

Señor, yo pido un huerto en un rincón tranquilo
donde haya una quebrada con aguas abundantes
una casita humilde cubierta de campánulas,
y una mujer y un hijo que sean como Vos.

Yo quisiera vivir muchos años, sin odios,
y hacer como los ríos que humedecen la tierra
mis versos y mis actos frescos y de puros.
Señor, dadme un sendero con árboles y pájaros.

Yo deseo que nunca os llevéis a mi madre,
porque a mi me gustara cuidarla cual a un niño
y dormirla con besos, cuando ya viejecita 
necesite del sol.

Quiero tener buen sueño, algunos pocos libros
un perro cariñoso que me salte a las piernas,
un rebaño de cabras, toda cosa silvestre,
y vivir de la tierra labrada por mis manos.

Salir a la campiña, y florecer en ella;
sentarme por la tarde, bajo el rústico alero,
a beber aire fresco y olorosa a montaña,
y hablarle a mi pequeño de las cosas humildes

Por la noche contarle algún cuento sencillo,
enseñarle a reír con la risa del agua
y dormirle pensando en que pueda, a la tarde,
guardar esa frescura de la hierba embebida;

y luego, al otro día, levantarme a la aurora
admirando la vida, bañarme en la quebrada,
ordeñar a mis cabras en la dicha del huerto,
y agregar una estrofa al poema del mundo.