Camecuaro

It’s our third day in Mexico and we haven’t stopped for longer than it takes to polish off a plate of tacos. I’m excited to be here, in my wife’s country, visiting her family. But I’m out of sorts, tired after dozens of hours travelling by plane and bus and car. I state my case for the putting up of feet – it feels like the earth is shifting beneath them. I need to catch up with myself. And yet here I am, being coaxed into another car ride.

It’s just a short trip from Zamora to Camecuaro, I’m told. Nothing like the eight-hour drive we made from Mexico City the day before, or the twelve-hour flight from Barcelona the day before that. And I am assured by both Judith and my mother-in-law, Irma, that this place could be just what I need.

I’m not convinced, I think what I need is a good lie down. But in my weakened state I’m defenceless against the combined might of the mother and daughter tag-team. I soon yield.

I find Camecuaro to be a small lake of clear waters, encircled by outlandishly shaped trees. Judith tells me these are ahuehuetes, and that their name means ‘old man of the water’ in the indigenous Náhuatl language. And truly, there’s something ancient, even primitive, about them. Their trunks are stout and covered in thick, wrinkled bark, reminiscent of elephant hide. The roots wind around the foot of each tree in a labyrinthine mass, like a nest of serpents fossilized mid-writhe.

Judith and Irma were right. This is a special place. We walk to the lake’s edge, where the roots snake down into the water. A Muscovy duck regards our approach.

Nestled on tangled roots

of old friend ahuehuete  –

crimson-wattled bird.

‘Let’s get in a boat!’ says Judith. Small, wooden and brightly painted – chili-red, turquoise, canary-yellow – they seem to have come out of a children’s picture book. They are barely bobbing in the lake’s docile waters. Each has a lady’s name written on the side: Lupita, Irene, Silvia, Sandra... We plump for Gloria.

Ensconced in our cosy vessel we begin rowing around the lake. It’s a weekday afternoon so we have the place to ourselves. The sun is an electric blanket, the breeze a gentle song, and sleepiness steals over us.

Oars left idle;

limbs stretching, eyelids kiss,

drifting into stillness.

After a while we feel hungry, so we row back to shore and make our way to a café overlooking the lake. We order a plate of fruta con chile: pieces of orange, cucumber, potato and jicama, covered in lime juice and ground chile piquin. This is all washed down with a bottle of Modelo Especial, chilled and served with fresh lemon juice and sea salt laced around the rim.

The ingredients are few and the dishes simply prepared, yet a cavalcade of flavours make merry on my tongue:  sweet, spicy, fiery, briny, bitter, zesty… It’s all too much!

An impromptu snack;

I am grateful for this taste –

a country’s essence.

After we return to the house I read more about ahuehuetes, which have now taken root in my brain. I learn that they have their origin in the Mesozoic period, when giant reptiles stalked or slithered across the land, and that some specimens grow to be thousands of years old. I discover that they were sacred to the indigenous peoples of Mexico – used by the Aztecs as a symbol of government – and that another name for them is the Moctezuma cypress.

And I read of the legend that conquistador, Hernán Cortés, wept beside an ahuehuete after the Spanish were routed by the Aztecs on La Noche Triste.

Beneath your branches

Cortés grieved defeat.

Our time with you was sweeter.

My roots have not had millennia to dig into this land and drink from its water, yet some ahuehuete strength and calm has passed to me today. For the first time since arriving in Mexico I feel the earth firm and friendly beneath my feet.

Primeval cypress!

Proud empires peak and plummet,

and still you stand.

For Billie Holiday

Your voice,

like smoked honey,
like creaking mahogany,

like roasted chestnuts in late November,

or a rainy Sunday afternoon

in a faded part of town.

Your voice,

an owl's plaintive cry

drifting through an opened window,

weaving in with the purr of the cat on the lap

and the crackling of the fire.

Your voice,

a hung-over clarinet,

throaty and full of regret

after a night of heady carousal.

I hear you now

as I wash these dishes,

alone on this grey morning,

after my own sweet share

of boozing and tomfoolery.

I hear you,

ghostly from the radio,

telling me not to be afraid,

not even of loneliness,

because that’s a gift too –

reminding us we're alive

and one day we won't be.

I hear you telling me,

despite it all, Lady Day,

that everything

will be okay.

We know that’s not true

but it’s important to say it;

even more so to sing it.

And no one sang it, Lady Day –

still no one sings it – 
like you.

Herring Gull

The bird

that still thinks

it’s a velociraptor.

*

Gull choreography:

Stalk, strut,

strike a pose;

thrust out neck,

snap wide zealous beak

– tongue rearing like an irate snake –

scream victory at the world.

*

With its

jerky motions,

vitric eyes and

swazzle screech;

its red-stained

hook of a nose –

avian cousin

to Mr Punch.

*

Hobbies include:

scavenging,

squabbling,

jeering,

thievery.

 *

City-slicking atavist –

how at home you are

in this domain

of men!

For Skip James

When Skip James sings

‘Hard Time Killing Floor Blues’

with a voice as high and light and sad

as the silhouette of a sparrow

           against a winter sun,

and somehow makes the strings of his guitar

tug shivers

from a heart you’d thought was set,

know that this is music

not from the soul

or for the soul

but of the soul.

Don’t expect

to find in it a flake of comfort.

It pretends to answer nothing,

offers no guidance or praise.

This is no hymn.

It is the song of a sparrow

that flew steeply into the blue,

and came back none the wiser –

          as lonely as the sun.

Objects and Apparitions

To Joseph Cornell

(Translated from the Spanish of Octavio Paz)

Hexahedrons of wood and glass,

scarcely bigger than a shoe box.

Night with all its lights fits inside them.

Monuments to every moment,

made with the scraps of every moment:

cages of infinity.

Marbles, buttons, thimbles, dice,

pins, stamps and glass beads:

tales of time.

Memory weaves and unweaves the echoes:

in the four corners of the box

shadowless ladies play hide-and-seek.

Fire buried in the mirror,

water asleep in the agate:

solos by Jenny Lind and Jenny Colon.

‘One should commit a painting,’ said Degas,

‘the way one commits a crime.’ But you built

boxes where things quicken from their names.

Slot machine of visions,

meeting glass for memories,

hotel for crickets and constellations.

Minimal, incoherent fragments:

contrary to History, creator of ruins,

from your ruins you made creations.

Theatre of spirits:

objects make the laws

of identity leap through hoops.

‘Grand Hotel Couronne’: the three of clubs

in a carafe, and wide-eyed

Thumbelina in the gardens of a reflection.

A comb is a harp

strummed by the gaze of a girl

born mute.

The reflector of the mind’s eye

scatters the spectacle:

solitary god above an extinct world.

The apparitions are manifest.

Their bodies weigh less than light.

They last as long as this sentence.

Joseph Cornell: inside your boxes

my words became visible for an instant.

Objetos y apariciones

A Joseph Cornell

Hexaedros de madera y de vidrio
apenas más grandes que una caja de zapatos.
En ellos caben la noche y sus lámparas.

Monumentos a cada momento
hechos con los desechos de cada momento:
jaulas de infinito.

Canicas, botones, dedales, dados,
alfileres, timbres, cuentas de vidrio:
cuentos del tiempo.

Memoria teje y destejo los ecos:
en las cuatro esquinas de la caja
juegan al aleleví damas sin sombra.

El fuego enterrado en el espejo,
el agua dormida en el ágata:
solos de Jenny Lind y Jenny Colon.

"Hay que hacer un cuadro", dijo Degas,
"como se comete un crimen". Pero tú construiste
cajas donde las cosas se aligeran de sus nombres.

Slot machine de visiones,
vaso de encuentro de las reminiscencias,
hotel de grillos y de constelaciones.

Fragmentos mínimos, incoherentes:
al revés de la Historia, creadora de ruinas,
tú hiciste con tus ruinas creaciones.

Teatro de los espíritus:
los objetos juegan al aro
con las leyes de la identidad.

Grand Hotel Couronne: en una redoma
el tres de tréboles y, toda ojos,
Almendrita en los jardines de un reflejo.

Un peine es un harpa
pulsada por la mirada de una niña
muda de nacimiento.

El reflector del ojo mental
disipa et espectáculo:
dios solitario sobre un mundo extinto.

Las apariciones son patentes.
Sus cuerpos pesan menos que la luz.
Duran lo que dura esta frase.

Joseph Cornell: en el interior de tus cajas
mis palabras se volvieron visibles un instante.

Art by Joseph Cornell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cornell

Poem by Octavio Paz

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/octavio-paz

English translation by Benjamin Palmer

The Devil Clears Up a Misconception

People have got me all wrong.

They think I’m against goodness,

loathe it, am sickened 
by its very sight.

None of that is true.

My misfortune

is to love goodness

too much.

I need

to feel it

pulsate.                                                                              

So I take it in my hands –

whenever chance comes my way –

to press it, prod it, play with it,

and give it

a little

squeeze.

(It is in my nature, you know,

to be something of a tease.)

But it’s when the fighting flutter comes,

and the beating thing takes flight,

that wonder 
             takes over
and this devil 
                          delights