“Summer solstice / Noche de San Juan”

By Nicole Cecilia Delgado

Translated by Urayoán Noel

 

 

 

This is how the hours slip us by:

1AM
If I’ve been too political or not political enough we’ll never know.
Time is compressing and the sea is expanding.

2AM
Two nights ago a group of women
held a ceremonial moondance.
Ancestors watch over the night of the she-wolves.

3AM
A week ago an anti-gmo molotov
and an incendiary text under a blanket.
A week ago a man killed himself in defiance defense of his country.

4AM
Two nights ago I almost lost it all betting on madness.
A few hours ago an animal came here to stay.

5AM
For three months more or less I’ve been living with a stranger.
I reconsider things that no longer seem that terrible.
Little by little we’re getting to know each other.

6AM
Poetry is quiet lately.

7AM
I watch the silence while working with my hands.
Time is slipping by, we can be sure of that.
Guava and rose apple for our despair.

8AM
I barely miss my old loves anymore.
Buildings are also disappearing.

9AM
I placed candles
on an altar full of rocks I found
and though they have no higher powers I feel protected.
One must protect oneself when an island goes under.

10AM
My friends leave for the United States yet sea turtles are nesting.

11AM
They close down schools yet sea turtles are nesting.

12PM
There’s a colony of sea fan coral
growing and healthy in El Escambrón Beach.
Secondary forest helps us alienate ourselves.

1PM
There’s no way to imagine ourselves without the forest
that swallows everything when no one is looking.
Secondary forest master of ecological renewal.

2PM
A week ago god’s hate took over the media.
There were concerts and funerals.
People dressed as angels built a fence
to protect the dead from god’s hate.

3PM
To work without pay. To work without pay. To work without pay.

4PM
When will we finally legalize marijuana.

5PM
In my city
the sun sets every day behind cargo ships
full of Chinese merchandise.
It’s a beautiful spectacle no one should miss.

6PM
How many friends left the country today?, I ask,
watching the hazy insecticide sunset over a beachfront city.

7PM
If we run out of onions no one will cook here.
Poetry cries at the realness of it all.

8PM
You make the rice and I’ll do the dishes.
Gender is an imposed order and we don’t follow orders.

9PM
Hear the machine guns singing nearby.

10PM
Kiss me.

11PM
Poetry died but we’re alive.

12AM
Puerto Rico died. Get me drunk.

 

 

 

from Periodo Especial (Aguadulce/La Impresora, 2019)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Solsticio de verano / Noche de San Juan”

 

 

Se nos están yendo las horas así:

1AM
Si he sido demasiado política o poco política no vamos a saberlo nunca.
El tiempo se comprime y se está expandiendo el mar.

2AM
Hace dos noches un grupo de mujeres
danzaron a la luna en una ceremonia.
Hay antepasados que velan la noche de las lobas.

3AM
Hace una semana molotov anti-transgénica
y un texto incendiario en una sábana.
Hace una semana se suicidó un hombre contra para el país.

4AM
Hace dos noches casi pierdo todo jugando a la locura.
Hace pocas horas llegó para quedarse un animal.

5AM
Hace tres meses más o menos vivo con un desconocido.
Reconsidero cosas que ya no me parecen tan terribles.
Poco a poco nos vamos conociendo.

6AM
La poesía está callada últimamente.

7AM
Observo el silencio y trabajo con las manos.
El tiempo está pasando, que no nos quepa duda.
Guayaba y pomarrosa para el desconsuelo.

8AM
Ya casi no extraño a los amores viejos.
Los edificios también desaparecen.

9AM
Puse velas
en un altar con piedras encontradas
sin ningún poder sobrenatural y me he sentido protegida.
Protegerse es prioridad cuando se hunde una isla.

10AM
Lxs amigxs se van a Estados Unidos pero anidan las tortugas.

11AM
Cierran escuelas pero anidan las tortugas.

12PM
Hay una colonia de coral abanico
creciendo saludable en El Escambrón.
El bosque secundario nos ayuda a enajenarnos.

1PM
Imposible imaginarnos sin el monte
que todo se lo traga cuando nadie está mirando.
Bosque secundario amo de la restauración ecológica.

2PM
Hace una semana el odio de dios acaparó los medios.
Hubo conciertos y hubo funerales.
Personas vestidas de ángeles hicieron un cerco
para proteger a lxs muertxs del odio de dios.

3PM
Trabajar sin paga. Trabajar sin paga. Trabajar sin paga.

4PM
Cuándo vamos por fin a legalizar la mariguana.

5PM
En mi ciudad
el sol cae todos los días detrás de buques de carga
llenos de mercancía china.
Es un espectáculo hermoso que nadie debería perderse.

6PM
¿Cuántxs amigxs se fueron hoy del país?, pregunto
y miro atardecer bruma insecticida sobre ciudad con playa.

7PM
Si se acaba la cebolla aquí no cocina nadie.
La poesía llora con tanta realidad.

8PM
Haz el arroz que yo lavo los trastes.
El género es un orden impuesto y nosotrxs no seguimos órdenes.

9PM
Escucha las ametralladoras cantan cerca.

10PM
Dame un beso.

11PM
La poesía ha muerto pero estamos vivxs.

12AM
Puerto Rico ha muerto. Emborráchame.

 

 

 

 

de Periodo Especial (Aguadulce/La Impresora, 2019)

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week’s Poesía en acción feature also includes:

An interview with Urayoán Noel

 

 

 

 

Nicole Cecilia Delgado is a Puerto Rican poet, translator, and book artist. In 2016, she founded La Impresora, an editorial studio specialized in small-scale independent publishing. Her latest books include: Apenas un cántaro: Poemas 2007-2017 (Ediciones Aguadulce, 2017), and Periodo Especial (Aguadulce/La Impresora, 2019), which explores the socioeconomic mirror images between the Greater Antilles in light of Puerto Rico’s ongoing financial crisis. Delgado is widely regarded as one of the leading Puerto Rican poets of her generation, and as a cultural worker bringing together artists, activists, and writers from across the Americas. Photo by Adál. @nicolascecilia

Urayoán Noel is a Puerto Rican poet, translator, performer, and critic living in the Bronx. He is the author of In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (University of Iowa Press, 2014) and the forthcoming Transversal (University of Arizona Press), among other books. His translations include No Budu Please by Wingston González (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018) and Architecture of Dispersed Life: Selected Poetry by Pablo de Rokha (Shearsman Books, 2018), which was a finalist for the National Translation Award. Noel teaches at NYU and at Stetson University’s MFA of the Americas. Photo by Luis Carle. @urayoannoel

 

Poesía en acción is an Action Books blog feature for Latin American and Spanish poetry in translation and the translator micro-interview series. It was created by Katherine M. Hedeen and is currently curated and edited by Olivia Lott with web editing by Paul Cunningham.