JANUARY by Sara Uribe, translated by Toshiya Kamei
ENERO
en las calles hay testigos que juran haberme visto caminar por ciertos sitios dicen que vivo ahí del otro lado de la palabra que tengo un jardín donde en lugar de flores todas las noches siembro olvido pero no los conozco y no sé si mienten o si la memoria es un rostro un ojo de murmullos que nos sigue y nos acecha cuando los días son más oscuros y la vida apenas comienza
On the above left, listen to the original version of “January”…
Sara Uribe was born in 1978 in Querétaro, Mexico. She is the author of Lo que no imaginas (2004), Palabras más palabras menos (2006), and Nunca quise detener el tiempo (2007). English translations of her poems have appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Harpur Palate, and So to Speak, among others.
JANUARY
on the streets there are witnesses who swear they have seen me walk around certain places they say I live beyond the other side of the word that I have a garden where instead of flowers every night I sow oblivion but I don’t know them and don’t know if they lie or if memory is a face an eye of murmurs that follows us and lies in wait when days are darker and life barely begins
- Published in Issue 2, Poetry, Translation
EDGE by Sara Uribe, translated by Toshiya Kamei
FILO
en el filo del tiempo pronuncio tu nombre una y otra vez como una suerte de conjuro pero todos saben que una palabra pierde sentido si la repites muchas veces que una palabra es demasiado frágil como para no romperse como para no rasgarse con el filo inverso del silencio así que mi voz se desvanece entre los hilos invisibles del sentido y sólo queda en el acero solitario del lenguaje una sombra una traza que se dispersa
On the above left, listen to the original version of “Edge”
Sara Uribe was born in 1978 in Querétaro, Mexico. She is the author of Lo que no imaginas (2004), Palabras más palabras menos (2006), and Nunca quise detener el tiempo (2007). English translations of her poems have appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Harpur Palate, and So to Speak, among others.
EDGE
on the edge of time I chant your name over and over again like a spell but everyone knows a word loses meaning if you repeat it many times a word is too fragile not without breaking not without tearing with the opposite blade of silence so my voice disappears among invisible edges of meaning and what only remains on the solitary steel of language is a shadow a trace that scatters
- Published in Issue 2, Poetry, Translation