3rd House Journal: Distances

Last night I was reading Eugenio Montejo's poems from The Trees, in a nice bilingual edition that lets me try to parse out the Spanish, then read the English translation for understanding, then read aloud once or twice, or more, the Spanish with feeling.

As I sat in my living room by the fire with snow falling outside and daydreaming of Mexico, I related a bit, in reverse, to his poem about Iceland as imagined from the poet's home in Caracas, Venezuela, just 8 degrees above the equator. Only it is not quite so extreme a juxtaposition, nor an impossibility - for I am going, after all. Which makes me think that the distance between where I am now and what I long for may not be so far after all - like pulling a thread between a stitch in that far fabric and the one I hold here, the real and the merely dreamed of may finally come to rub up against one another.

Iceland

Iceland and the distances which are left us,
with their frozen mists and fjords
where they speak dialects of ice.

Iceland so close to the pole,
purified by nights
where the whales suckle their young.

Iceland drawn in my exercise book,
the illusion and the tragedy (or vice-versa).

Could anything be more ill-fated than this longing
to go to Iceland and recite its sagas,
to traverse its fogs?

It's the sun of my country
which burns so much
that makes me dream of its winters.
This equatorial contradiction
of seeking a snow that preserves heat at its core,
that doesn't strip the cedars of their leaves.

I will never get to Iceland. It's very far.
Many degrees below zero.
I'm going to fold the map over and bring Iceland closer.
I'm going to cover its fjords with palm tree groves.

For the Spanish, click below.

Islandia

Islandia y lo lejos que nos queda,
con sus brumas helada y sus fjordos
donde se hablan dialectos de hielo.

Islandia tan próxima del polo,
purificada por las noches
en que amamantan las ballenas.

Islandia dibujada en mi cuaderno,
la ilusión y la pena (o viceversa).

¿Habrá algo más fatal que este deseo
de irme a Islandia y recitar sus sagas,
de recorrer sus nieblas?

Es este sol de mi país
que tanto quema
el que me hace soñar con sus inviernos.
Esta contradicción ecuatorial
de buscar una nieve
que preserve en el fondo su calor,
que no borre las hojas de los cedros.

Nunca iré a Islandia. Está muy lejos.
A muchos grados bajo cero.
Voy a plegar el mapa para acercala.
Voy a cubrir sus fjordos con bosques de palmeras.