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Poem-a-day

From “Migrations”

translated from the Spanish by Mark Schafer

now I’m in a landscape full of mockingbirds
I get closer and closer 
when I claim that vastness
I’ll barely have the strength to wake in the brevity of death
the light strikes the air
we’re in the place where the colors open
the days are long and clench like migraines
and everything repeats
the trees casting off
the night dissolving
and then?
nothing is true but the reflection of the dream I’m trying to shatter
and which I don’t even dare to dream
constant plagiarism of myself
and time is the only meeting place
it’s all nothing but time
there where a few sprigs of bougainvillea in a glass of water
suffice to make us a garden
because we die alone
and death is just the awakening
from this first dream of living
and my grandmother said as we left the movies
dream that the dream of life is beautiful my child
the candles’ glow grows rusty
and I where am I?
I’m who I always was
the surprise of being
I come to where everything starts the beginning of the beginning
this is the time
the time for waking up
my grandmother lights the Shabbos candles from her death and looks at me
Shabbat lengthens into never into after into before
my grandmother who died of dreams
endlessly rocks the dream that invents her
which I invent 
a wild girl looks at me from inside

I am whole


 

From “Migraciones”

 

ahora estoy en un paisaje de cenzontles
cada vez estoy más cerca

cuando posea esa inmensidad
apenas tendré fuerza para despertar en la brevedad de la muerte

la luz golpea el aire
estamos donde los colores se abren
son días largos y apretados como la migraña
y todo se repite
los árboles desamarrándose
la noche deshaciéndose
¿y después?
lo único verdadero es el reflejo del sueño que trato de fracturar

y que ni siquiera me atrevo a soñar
continuo plagio de mí misma
y el lugar del encuentro es sólo tiempo
todo no es sino tiempo
allá donde unas cuantas buganvilias en un vaso de agua
bastan para hacernos un jardín
porque morimos solos
y la muerte es apenas el despertar
de este sueño primero de vivir
y dijo mi abuela a la salida del cine
sueña que es hermoso el sueño de la vida muchacha
se oxida la lumbre de las veladoras
y yo ¿dónde estoy?
soy la que fui siempre
lo inesperado de estar siendo
llego al lugar del principio donde comienza el comienzo
éste es el tiempo
es el tiempo de despertar
la abuela enciende las velas sabáticas desde su muerte y me mira

se extiende el sábado hasta nunca hasta después hasta antes
mi abuela que murió de sueños
mece interminablemente el sueño que la inventa
que yo invento
una niña loca me mira desde adentro

estoy intacta

Copyright © 2025 by Gloria Gervitz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 18, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

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Gloria Gervitz

Gloria Gervitz
Courtesy of the Estate of Gloria Gervitz
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Garrett Hongo is the Guest Editor of May. Read or listen to a Q&A with Hongo about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
Self as Goat in Tree Mihaela Moscaliuc 10/17/2018
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Crepuscule E. E. Cummings 10/14/2018
Six O’Clock Trumbull Stickney 10/13/2018
Grace Sarah Gambito 10/12/2018
Nursing L. Lamar Wilson 10/11/2018
Before you returned Kayte Young 10/10/2018
west of philly Yolanda Wisher 10/09/2018
The blessed angels Toi Derricotte 10/08/2018

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