Poetry in Translation Issue
Volume 16:3, Summer 2015
The Atmosphere and the Sand
Pass your clatter of light through the glass,
your solid bloom
in its fragile stand, shy of grace,
and your banner of blue sparks,
your silencing mastery and your basket of sounds:
Take me under your eyes in the season of the evening
with its gardening light, its honey
of color, its dark
dew: All
fixed and infinite, never to move.
El Ambito y La Arena
Adelanta tu ruido de luz por los cristales,
tu gruesa flor
en su delgado asiento, escondido de gracia,
y tu estandarte de centella azul,
tu dominio silenciador y tu cesta de ruidos:
Tenme bajo tus ojos en la estación de la tarde
con su luz jardinera, su miel
de color, su rocío
oscuro: Todo
estante e infinito, para nunca moverse.
Patricia Davis's poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Salt Hill, Atlanta Review, Potomac Review, Quiddity, and Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology. Her translations of Cuban poetry have appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, and New Laurel Review, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her chapbook, The Water that Broke You, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014, and she is co-author, with Dianna Ortiz, of a nonfiction work, The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth (Orbis Books, 2004).
Francisco de Oraá was one of the most important Cuban poets of the twentieth century. De Oraá was born in Havana in 1929 and published seven books of poetry, winning the Julián del Casal Prize in 1979 for Ciuidad, Cuidad, and the Critics Prize in 1986 for Make a House for Everyone. He died in Havana in 2010.