Camille Dungy
Mujeres poetas de Venezuela/Women poets of Venezuela
I received an unanticipated package early this week. Each month, enough packages containing books or journals show up in my box that I tend to be unfazed when an unexpected package arrives. Often, when such books arrive, I take a cursory glace at the cover and the table of contents, register interest, then set the book aside, promising to return to it when I have a bit more time. Lately, I’ve been on the run, with too much to do in too few hours, and I’ll admit I opened the padded envelope without even bothering to see who/where it was from. But this little package was different. It had come all the way from Venezuela, carrying with it the work of twenty-five women I immediately wanted to get to know. Perfiles de la Noche/Profiles of Night: Mujeres poetas de Venezuela/Women poets of Venezuela compelled me to stop all my running, to sit down, to read.
The House Inside
To Poetry
The house needs both my hands.
I must hold up its plaster like my bones,
its salt like my joys,
its fable in the night
and the sun burning in the middle of its body.
I have to suffer the curtains and their seagulls
dead in flight.
Be moved by the garden and its sketched mask of flowers,
the innocent brick accused
of not being up to the mirrors,
and the doors open for new brides
with their sound of rice growing under the veil.
I have to look after its replica of the universe,
the memory of fields in the vases,
the concerted vigil of the table,
the pillow and its likeness of strayed birds,
the milk with dawn’s face under its brow
with the stiff solitude of a lily
simply being born.
I have to love it whole, going out of my hands
with the grace that lives on my dying grace.
And not know, not know there’s a clover village
with the sea at it’s door
and no names
nor lamps.
Read the entire post here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/05/mujeres-poetas-de-venezuelawomen-poets-of-venezuela/
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