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Two Poems From The City Within You by Karla Marrufo Huchim


This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn grey in these same houses […]
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
…………………………………………………………………Kavafis

 

La ciudad irá en ti siempre. Volverás
a las mismas calles. Y en los mismos
suburbios llegará tu vejez;
en la misma casa amanecerás […]
La vida que aquí perdiste
la has destruido en toda la tierra.

Kavafis

 

Other Cities

 

……across the seas 

……and despite the times

i only wanted to know you existed still

untouched by those faint signs 

of winter in a warm place 

i wanted to tell you—there are yellow cities in our dreams,

cities built from other cities, 

and perhaps i found you

in one of them: 

gazing at your own reflection 

in the water from a spring

 

i only wanted to leave a record of the rustling wind,

without mentioning excess or natural disasters,

to forget this dry tremor

that binds each of our smiles

when we notice we are alone,

and without names of our own

 

i only wanted to keep your traces

in a secret corner of my hand

…..in case

…..someday

…..i venture back that way.

 

 

Otras Ciudades

 

…………a través de los mares

…………a pesar de los tiempos


sólo quería confirmar que existes,

que te encuentras intacta en la nota más sencilla

de un invierno sin frío

 

quería decir que en el sueño hay ciudades amarillas 

hechas de otras ciudades

y que quizá en alguna te encontré

mirando tu reflejo en un ojo de agua

 

sólo quería dejar constancia del crujir del viento


sin hablar de desmesuras ni desastres naturales


para poder olvidar ese temblor seco que nos amarra la sonrisa

cuando nos advertimos solos

y sin nombres propios

 

sólo quise guardar tus huellas


en un secreto rincón de mis manos

…..por si acaso


…..algún día


…..aventuro el camino de regreso.

 

 

The True Bridges

 

but sometimes i say the city

is waking as the birds name it 

with their prolonged song—

…….the threads of
…………………………………………..green

echoes that have no translation, 

spread like waves on quiet waters

 

something of a revelation or mirage 

comes with the blue dawn,

…….with the suspense of this passage from calmness 

…….into motion, just as objects curve

…….when they know they are alive.

 

the city awakens by itself,

though dawn opens certain rivers that don’t exist,

making way for the trembling mountains 

that have yet to arrive,

…….but are already looking toward these coasts

 

invisible places:

…….spaces that echo with birds

…….formless, 

…….without any sign whatsoever

i say the city is waking, and i awaken with it

…….though behind me they keep building

………….the dreams that flow inside my veins

the true bridges.

 

 

Los Puentes Verdaderos 

 

pero a veces digo “la ciudad despierta”


y los pájaros la nombran con su trinar alargado

…….con los hilos de un eco intraducible 

………………verde

que se expande como onda en aguas quietas

 

hay algo en el azul amanecer que puede ser revelación o espejismo 

…….suspenso pasadizo de quietud


…….hacia el alabeo de las cosas cuando se saben vivas

 

la ciudad se levanta para sí


pero abre al alba ciertos ríos que no existen 

el temblor de unas montañas que no llegan

…….pero hacia estas costas miran

 

son sitios invisibles:


…….recintos de los ecos de las aves 

…….sin forma ya


…….sin signo alguno

 

digo la ciudad despierta y yo con ella 

…….aunque detrás de mí se erijan

………….sueño adentro en la sangre 

los puentes verdaderos.

 

 

 


Karla Marrufo Huchim (Mérida, México) holds a Doctorate in Hispanic-American Literature from la Universidad Veracruzana. Her work has been recognized through several prestigious literary awards, including: the 2005-2007 National Wilberto Cantón Award in Playwriting (Premio Nacional de Dramaturgia “Wilberto Cantón”); the XVI José Díaz Bolio Poetry Prize (XVI Premio de poesía “José Díaz Bolio”) for La ciudad en ti /The City within You (Centro Cultural ProHispen, 2016); and the 2014 National Dolores Castro in Narration (Premio Nacional de Narrativa “Dolores Castro”) for her novel Mayo/May. She received a fellowship from the Programa de Estímulo a la Creación y al Desarrollo Artístico en Yucatán (the PECDA, or Program for the Expansion and Development of Creativity and the Arts in the Yucatán), which resulted in the publication of her book Mérida lo invisible/Mérida the Invisible (published under the title Arquitecturas de lo invisible/Architecture of the Invisible in its second printing).

 

Allison A. deFreese has previously translated works by Luis Chitarroni, Amado Nervo, and other Latin American writers. Her writing and literary translations have appeared in 60 magazines and journals, including: Asymptote; Solstice; The New York Quarterly, Quick Fiction and Southwestern American Literature. An English language version of María Negroni’s book Elegía Joseph Cornell/Elegy for Joseph Cornell, translated by Allison deFreese, is forthcoming in 2020.



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