Two poems by Etel Adnan, from the poem collection A primaveira florece de seu
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The morning after my death
The morning after
my death
we will sit in the cafeterias
but I don't
I will be there
I will not be
*
It had been the great death of the birds
the moon was consumed with the
fire
the stars were visible
until noon
Green was the soaked forest
with shadows
the paths were winding
A redwood stood up
soa
with his slender, enlightened body
unable to follow the
cars they passed with
frenzy
A tree is always an immutable one
traveler
The moon darkened at dawn
the mound shuddered
with anticipation
and the ocean was in double shadow:
the blue of its surface with
blue of the flowers
mixed in horizontal waterways
there was a breeze to
witness the time.
*
The sun darkened in the
fifth hour of the
day
the beach was covered with
conversations
the hairs began to fall into the holes
and the waves came in like
horses.
*
The moon darkened on Christmas Eve
the angels ate lemons
in lighted churches
there was a blue carpet
planted with stars
over our heads
lemonade and war news
they competed for our attention
our breathing was warmer
with the hills.
*
There was a great slaughter of
spring leaf rocks
of streams
the stars showed completely
the last king of the hill
gave battle
and they killed him
We lay down on the grass
covered the dried blood with ours
bodies
the green leaves swayed between the
our teeth
*
We went out to sea
A bank of whales was heading to the
Sur
A young man among us a hero
tried to ride one of the carts
sea creatures
his body emerged like a puddle of mud
like mud
we said goodbye to his remains
happy not to have to bury him
in the early hours of the day
We got drunk at a bar
the small town of Fairfax
he had just gone to bed
the cherries bent under the
weight of its flowers:
they were wrapped in a ceremonial
dance to which no one
he had never been invited.
*
I know the flowers to be funeral companions
they make poisons and poisons
and they eat abandoned stone walls
I know the flowers shine brighter
with the sun
its eclipse means the end of the
times
But I love flowers for their betrayal
their fragile bodies
they adorn the avenues of my imagination
without his presence
my mind would be a grave
unmarked
*
We encountered a great storm at sea
He looked back at them
rocky cliffs
the sand was sinking
black birds were
leaving
the storm ate friends and enemies
same as
water converted to salt for
my wounds
*
The flowers end in frozen patterns
the artificial gardens cover
the floors
we approached midnight
seek with powerful lights
the smallest shrubs of the
prairies
A stream runs desperately towards him
the ocean
This unfinished matter of my childhood:
This unfinished matter of mine
childhood
this emerald lake
on the other side of mine
travel
it pursues the hierarchies of the heavens
a forest of palm trees
fell overnight
to make room for an unwanted one
garden
since then
fevers and swelling
they turned me into a river
the streets were steep
the winds were blowing ahead
of boats…
It had in fact been the great death of the birds
the moon had died
*
The morning after his death
chasing him beyond his bitter end
his mother came to
his grave:
he removed his bones from the
its pattern
and threw them into the mud:
the women came at night
and they claimed Rimbaud his
that night there was much
throne was impressive
*
Laurels and lilacs
they bloom around my head
because I faced the sun
You see the Colorado River running
between flowery banks
I repeat my travels to search for
happiness that has surpassed
your absence
I was happy not to love you anymore
until sunset reached
o East
and broke my raft to pieces
there were other underground rivers
covered with dead flowers
it was cold it was cold it was cold
cold
*
Under a combination of pain
and machine gun fire
the flowers are gone
they are in it
state of non-being
than Emily Dickinson
We dead have conversations
in our gardens
about our lack of
existence
*
The gardener is planting
flowers
blue and white
some angel moved in with me
to escape the cold
The temperature on Earth is
ascending
but we carry on us some
immovable cold
all bear his death as
a growing shadow
*
I left the morning paper
by the cup of coffee
The heat was 85 as the
anus
and I went to the window to bump into it
with which the flowers had bloomed at night
to replace bodies
shot down in the war
the enemy had come with fire
and cunning
to stamp the names of the dead
in the gardens of Yohmor
It's not because spring
be too beautiful
that we will not write what
it happened in the dark
*
A butterfly came to die
between two stones
at the foot of the hill
the mound shed shadows
about her
to cover the secret of the
death
Translated from the English by Breogán Xague,
Link to the original poems: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53851/from-the-spring-flowers-own-the-morning-after-my-death