last petals

you know what the Japanese say.
the flower turns people's blood crazy.
you said, too, the cherry blossoms were like butterflies
on my skin, making your blood crazy.

a darker flower grows within me now.
you left before it caught you beneath my ribs,
before it turned me into that butterfly,
that you'd kill someday, in your sleep.

note:

In the Japanese tradition, cherry blossoms are linked both to renewal and death, life joy and madness. And of course, ephemerality. It is said that one who enters a forest of blossoming cherry trees will go mad, because of their unbearable beauty.

..

this harsh, fiery spring

i walk through the fields of spring

in search of myself.
i carry:
the luxurious maps of being,
drawn with meticulous exactness.
a mirror, to make sure i never forget
whom exactly i look for.
a rope to jump, in case i find myself
a child again, flooded with the joy of living.
a handful of seeds to scatter, from time to time
(though more out of boredom, really,
than eagerness to become).

i make lists. i am very precise,
the same precision i use to extract dreams
out of my warm blood. for example,
what it is that stands between me and myself:
these fields, the line of burning, when
they meet the sky. this sunlit wound of waiting.
this freshly cut grass, this bird's wing.
my shadow, when you left.
the dazzling music of each step.
this endless fluttering back and forth,
again and again.

or rather this thought here, now.
the belief that i am still
- and gloriously - alive,
piercing through the heart
of this harsh, fiery spring.

..

this sullen spring

i walk under the trees of spring
looking for you.
my shadow grows thinner.
suddenly, i can't call the shadow
shadow any longer
i can't call the evening evening.
oh, may that not happen with you, too
- i know it does, already -
i turn around and i see myself over there
running in circles
cutting the air with pale little arms,
while i thought myself here,
both feet firmly plunged
into this sullen spring.

..

mutilated by a dream

I injured a butterfly
in a dream.
And now I don't know what to do
to keep from dreaming about it again.

Another butterfly
came close to me while I was awake:
it was the same butterfly.

Perhaps a pact
between dreaming and waking will keep me
from recognizing
any other butterfly in the future.

Or mutilated by a dream now
I can only see
that single butterfly.


Roberto Juarroz
tr. Mary Crow

Lastimé una mariposa
durante un sueño.
Y no sé ahora cómo hacer
para no soñarla de nuevo.

Otra mariposa
se me acercó despierto:
era la misma mariposa.

Tal vez un pacto
entre el sueño y la vigilia
me impida en adelante
reconocer otra.

O mutilado por un sueño
ya sólo puedo ver
esa única mariposa.

..