Telaraña

Así que el miedo era esto.
Una araña negra que se escabulle
bajo las tablas de madera.
Miro la gotita de sangre en mi piel
y pienso, rápido;
el último billete,
el último pedazo de pan,
un relámpago crepitando bajo la puerta.
Duela o no,
yo imagino que sí.
Me acuerdo del murciélago que atrapamos
en el sótano, cómo dio batalla
entre escobazos,
sin saber que íbamos a dejarlo ir.
Me levanto para caminar, a ver si puedo.
Así que el miedo era esto.
Una puerta
se abre en la penumbra
las cortinas se mueven
como si el viento tuviera huesos.

Mary Oliver, Primitiva Americana, trad. de N. Leiderman y P. Foglia, Ed. Caleta Olivia, 2024.

Photo By Dick Culbert , used under CC-BY-2.0 /Cropped and compressed from original

Marengo – Mary Oliver

Les dejo el poema de Mary Oliver y la lectura de Steve Braff.

Marengo

Out of the sump rise the marigolds.

From the rim of the marsh, muslin with mosquitoes,

rises the egret, in his cloud-cloth.

Through the soft rain, like mist, and mica,

the withered acres of moss begin again.

When I have to die, I would like to die

on a day of rain—

long rain, slow rain, the kind you think will never end.

And I would like to have whatever little ceremony there might be

take place while the rain is shoveled and shoveled out of the sky,

and anyone who comes must travel, slowly and with thought, as

around the edges of the great swamp.

Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems.

When Death Comes – Mary Oliver

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems, Volume One: 1 (pp. 10-11). Beacon Press. Edición de Kindle. Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems, Volume One: 1 (p. 10). Beacon Press. Edición de Kindle.

EL DÍA DE VERANO – Mary Oliver

¿Quién creó el mundo?
¿Quién dio forma al cisne, al oso negro?
¿Quién hizo al saltamontes?
Me refiero a este saltamontes,
el que acaba de saltar en la hierba,
el que ahora come azúcar de mi mano,
el que mueve las fauces de atrás para adelante y no de arriba abajo,
el que mira a su alrededor con enormes ojos complicados.
Ahora levanta una de sus patas y se lava la cara cuidadosamente.
Ahora de pronto abre sus alas y se va flotando.
Yo no sé con certeza lo que es una oración.
Sin embargo sé prestar atención
y sé cómo caer sobre la hierba,
cómo arrodillarme en la hierba,
cómo ser bendita y perezosa,
cómo andar por el campo,
que es lo que llevo haciendo todo el día.
Dime, ¿qué más debería haber hecho?
¿No es verdad que todo al final se muere, y tan pronto?
Dime, ¿qué planeas hacer con tu preciosa, salvaje, única, vida?

(Versión de e-soliloquio)

THE SUMMER DAY

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

En http://emmagunst.blogspot.com.ar/2015/10/mary-oliver-el-dia-de-verano.html

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