More poems from Nuevos Himnos a Noche (New Hymns to the Night) by Benjamín Valdivia translated into English by Jaime H. Herrera and Kimberly Williams.

 
Jaime H. Herrera is currently a Professor of English at Mesa Community College. Jaime is a product of the Juárez/El Paso border, a place he holds dear and which embodies who he is, as much Mexican as American, as much Mexicano (and mexinaco) as he is estadounidense (and gringo). He is bicultural and bilingual (and speaks a good Spanglish too). He knows that the border is a space that cannot be fenced. La frontera es un espacio que no se puede cercar. He loves translation, the back and forth between the two languages. Also. he writes his own poetry in both English and Spanish and has written a novel (as of yet unpublished), tentatively titled This is not Juárez. When he dies, he wants his ashes spread right in the middle of the bridge that connects Juárez and El Paso, his ashes blowing in both directions.

This week's four poems were primarily translated by Jaime H. Herrera.

***

Edifice of Sadness
 
From your sadness
is erected a wall
and a chain.
 
And neither do I leave the delight
of the world nor board
the ship of the day.
 
Your sadness
in my external world:
the squaring of this slab
 
of irreverent weight
above
everything that I think.
 
There is a dead
bird in
all of this.
 
But you say that
the salt of your impatience
is due to nothing.
 
And I say that the sea
has a few tears
too many.  
 


Response of Things 


When you are not with me, I fall apart
I wander as if without myself through these dark clouds
over the irreparable cold that the night announces.   
 
Because flags sink and the minute is filled with rust
and things don’t understand and are not encouraged
to follow or they decide to be wilted and black.
 
But on your return, in your steps, new like the world
initial, time is clear and things lost in their abyss
respond again, each one, to the names you give them.     
 


 Preparation of the Trip 


I want to understand
the joyful way
through which the year comes.
 
Also the circular
flight
of the sun opening its corolla.
 
Burns in the cold
the same substance
of life trodden to the now
 
and pursue the dreams of someone who trusts
in the highest species
of happiness.
 
Black dots
and unread stains
are warned of in the map.
 
Crosses, the trains
thunderous passing
and birds with black entrails.
 
But at the end of the day
the destiny and the journey are clear
by which we will go.
 
 
 
Terrestrial Time 


We are the arrows
of the dates:
dart of time.
 
But we advance in the dry
night or over the liquid
day.
 
No one repeats the day with us:
new and fresh
in the continuity.
 
Because we roam in the wet
slopes of our mutual
loves.
 
Because we are stronger
than the fires
with which terrestrial time
 
has always wanted us
and wants
and will always want to burn.