Clarification + Scar

Manuel Iris

Clarification

It’s a lie that trees
do not know the world.

A tree travels by virtue of its birds
and also travels inward
when sinking its roots.

It all makes sense:

Nothing is more fixed to the earth
than a tree,

nothing moves more through the air
than a bird

(It is a fruit
that flies)

and poetry is the fact
that they need each other.


Aclaración

Es mentira que los árboles
desconocen el mundo.

Un árbol viaja por medio de sus pájaros
y también viaja hacia adentro
al hundir sus raíces.

Todo tiene sentido:

nada está más fijo en la tierra
que un árbol,

nada se mueve más en el aire
que un pájaro

(es un fruto
que vuela)

y la poesía es el hecho
de que se necesiten.


Scar

My mother has a scar
that goes through her left wrist.

She doesn’t hide it
but we never mention it.

I have not asked if that happened
while I was a child
or before I was born.

I have not asked how she saved herself.

I do not ask why.

Sometimes
silence is a scar.


Cicatriz

Mi madre tiene una cicatriz
que le atraviesa la muñeca izquierda.

Jamás la oculta
pero no la mencionamos.

No he preguntado si aquello sucedió
siendo yo niño
o antes de mí.

No he preguntado cómo se salvó.

No pregunto por qué.

A veces el silencio
es una cicatriz.



Manuel Iris is a Mexican poet living in the United States and the current poet laureate of the City of Cincinnati. He received the “Merida” National award of poetry (Mexico, 2009) for his book Notebook of Dreams, and the Rodulfo Figueroa Regional award of poetry for his book The Disguises of Fire (Mexico, 2014). In 2016, three different anthologies of his poetic work were published: The Naked Light, in Venezuela; and Before the Mystery, in El Salvador, and Traducir el silencio/Translating Silence, in New York. This book won two different awards in the International Latino Book Awards in Los Angeles, California, in 2018.



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