desde la superficie rugosa donde se ocultan las palabras.
Jamás podré descifrarla
porque entreteje sus fibras con el hilo de su propia luz.
Intento besarla pero no puedo.
Se me escapan sus cuerdas de metal,
sus ligeras cuentas de oro.
La poesía se parece a mi dolor
pero su rostro no se contrae como el de una criatura
porque ella no es criatura ni palabra nombrada.
Es la palabra que se quedó en el silencio.
Lo demás
Todo
Nada
le sobra.
Marialuz is a poet in Quito that I met at Easter dinner last year. She spent most of the dinner chasing her kids while I talked to her husband, an American. But, eventually she did sit down and took a moment to tell me where I could find copies of her work. She also gave some good suggestions about contemporary Ecuadorian prose writers. She was a lovely woman and is highly regarded in the Quito literary scene and has received a number of prizes.
This was the first poem of hers that really stuck me. Below is my translation.
Poetry calls me
from the rough surface where they hide words,
I never will be able to decode it
because it interweaves its fibers with the thread of its own light.
I try to kiss it but cannot.
Its strings of metal, its light
golden beads escape me.
Poetry is something like my grief
but its face doesn’t contort like a creature 's does
because she is not a creature nor a word with a name.
She is the word that remained in silence.
The rest
All
Nothing
exceeds it.
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