Looking at Photos

translated by John Keene

Dagmaris walking away on the beach.
Asunción, her fan, her trim do.
Gloria two days before dying.
Roberto, pointing to nothing.
Idermis behind Oscar, after Jorge.

I so far away I almost cannot make myself out.
My brother wasting a smile.
My aunt as ugly as the word itself.
Grandmother in her best days.
Grandfather with a festive tie.
My father drunk again.
My mother like a distantly spilled perfume.

 


Mirando Fotos 

Dagmaris alejándose en la playa.
Asunción su abanico su peinado breve.
Gloria dos días antes de morir.
Roberto señalando nada.
Idermis detrás Oscar después Jorge.

Yo tan lejos que casi no me distingo.
Mi hermano gastando una sonrisa.
Mi tía fea hasta el fondo de la palabra.
Abuela en sus mejores tiempos.
Abuelo con una corbata contenta.
Mi padre embriagado otra vez.
Mi madre como un perfume derramado distante.

Related Poems

More Than Something Else

Something Else.
Some one else
Some where else

That place is here,
In my home,
We are here.

I am brown,
Brown hair,
Brown eyes,
Like cookies Feather tells me, and I like to think it’s perfectly
cooked Pueblo cookies.

My kids are something else,
9 different shades of brown,
All beautiful.

My grandkids are something else,
4 brown eyes, 2 blue eyes,
All Native,
Definitely something else, as I watch them be rowdy, be loving,
be here in this world.

We are here
On this earth
In this time and place

In our homes,
On our lands,
In the cities,
With our families, laughing loudly, cooking together, protecting
each other.

We are something else
With our songs
Our dances.

We pray with corn meal,
Eagle feathers,
Medicine bundles,
Burn some sage, make sure to acknowledge the four directions,
as the sun comes up.

We are the something else,
Who were here,
To greet Christopher Columbus

We were born from
This earth,
Crawled out of the center,
Of our mother’s womb, we are important, we are strong.

We are something else,
We are Pueblo people, Plains people, Forest People, Desert
people, Nomadic people, Cliff dwellers, Ocean fishers, Lake and
river fishers, hunters, medicine collectors, horse riders, artists,
speakers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, we are human beings.
We are something else,
We are Native People,
Indigenous to this land.
We are a proud,
Something else.

Ode on an Abandoned House

Wind and rain, here
are the keys
to the house—
a missing door,
two broken windows.

Birds, for you a room
with a view—the bedroom,
which once held
the moon and stars
out of sight.

Ants and worms,
such sad witnesses,
the grass uncut,
the yard overgrown
are again yours to inherit.

And you, the leaves whirling
across buckled floors,
please take
my father’s voice
whispering

May you live forever,
may you bury me.