The Dreaming Body
The day will come
when an unfamiliar voice
will call you by your name,
and your eyes will comb the street
searching for nobody.
The day will come
in which your hands want
to trap your ghost
only to catch
the heartbeat of a stranger.
The day will come,
on the street, when your
double appears in person
and on its becoming one with you,
you disappear.
The First Dream
Against political harassment,
against criminal violence,
against fear
I built a wall of poetry.
Not All
For Norman Manea
Not all the stars are angels in flames
not all the rivers reach the sea
not all rains are crystal clear
not all hunger is the best sauce in the world
not all things that have teeth hunt down someone to eat
not all wombs are the door to paradise
not all dreams have an awakening
not all that I say is for sure
The Tree
For Chloe and Eva Sophia
Then the tree had a dream
it dreamed it was in a wood
and its branches that leaned out
onto my window were full of birds
it dreamed its seeds fell to the ground
and turned into other trees
into other dreams that grew
inside and outside us
it dreamed there were two roads
one which went down to the underworld
and the other which rose up to the Horizon
where evening never fell
it had to stay in the same place
staring through a thousand green eyes at man
who came in trucks with chainsaws
to cut it in two
at that moment the tree awoke
saw itself with shoes on its roots
and like an uprooted angel
took to the road
____________________________
Homero Aridjis
Self-portrait in the zone of silence
New Directions, 2023
translated from the Spanish by George McWhirter
