of transubstantiation as the poet himself becomes the poem itself. We are no longer “reading” but experiencing his/our very being. Words are no longer words, but speak to us the way a soul would speak to us—not through mere language, but through pure feeling, and evocation:
Halfway through the poem, it seems something sacred
will force us to follow it down distant depths
where it opens the dreaming into what is dreamed.
from “Halfway Through the Poem”
I was waiting for an angel with keen eyes.
I was waiting for an angel.
And the windows opened to the night,
and I was no more.
from “Landscape with Shadow and House Overlooking the Night”
Richard Blanco is the fifth presidential inaugural poet in US history—the youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban-exiled parents and raised in Miami, he is the author of several acclaimed memoirs, award-winning poetry collections, and chapbooks.
SEDUCCIÓN DEL MINOTAURO
Ignoro si hombre soy o sombra he sido,
si lo que somos vuelve del pasado,
como la breve luna que ha dejado
sus ciclos y su historia en el olvido.
Acaso soy Tiresias. No he podido
adivinar qué sombra me ha dejado
sin báculo, indefenso y olvidado,
o qué manos sagradas me han ungido
de un aceite soñado por los dioses?
¿Qué presente, pasado o qué futuro
me alcanza silencioso como el día
que eterno en mí repite la agonía
de no saber quién vela, en el oscuro
crepúsculo, memorias tan atroces?
THE SEDUCTION OF THE MINOTAUR
I know not if I’m man or if I’m shadow,
if what we are returns out from the past,
just like the fleeting moon has given up
its cycles and its story to oblivion.
Perhaps I am Tiresias. But I
cannot divine: What shadow’s left me all
defenseless, unremembered, without a staff
so I can stand erect? What sacred hands
anointed me with oil from godly dreams?
What present, what past or future finds me,
silent as the day repeating in me,
endlessly, the pain of never knowing,
in dimming dusk, who stays awake to keep
the watch upon such terrible memories?
BOOKS & BOOKS, LINCOLN ROAD
La imagen es otra, adolece. El cambio de estación apenas se advierte. Leía Invisible de Paul Auster cuando entraste al recinto: yo sentado y los libros, muchos libros, el olor del papel y de la tinta y nada más. Entre Rudolf Born, Adam Walker, y ella, estaba yo como un testigo absurdo, de paso. Las páginas se sucedían; pensaba en el impulso, en el deseo del impulso, esa materialidad con que se forman las cosas. Invisible y yo, nada más; luego entraste. Vuelve el deseo. Invisible. Invisible. Leo algunas palabras pero la imagen regresa: tú vas de libro a libro, tus dedos rozan las cubiertas luminosas, el papel que guarda todo un mundo en otro idioma. En algún instante Born insinúa que el muchacho debería estar con su amante, con la amante de Born. Yo quiero estar en el mundo del libro, ser un personaje más, decirle a Born que el muchacho puede estar con su amante, con la chica francesa. No son los ciclos del amor, sino del deseo. Todo sucede como en el libro, pero al final estamos él y yo mirándonos despacio, sin lenguaje. Pienso en los límites de la devastación, en la lluvia que afuera cae, en las pocas palabras que el muchacho habla sin yo entenderlo; miro su piel blanca, sus ojos y mis ojos se encuentran en el vacío del aire. No hay triunfo; no lo habrá. Es una imagen, sólo eso, me digo. Antes de irse, sus ojos volvieron a mirarme. Sentí la inutilidad y la idea de pertenecer sólo a un recuerdo momentáneo, a la ausencia de todo, y de las palabras.
BOOKS & BOOKS, LINCOLN ROAD
The image is other, it suffers. The season changing no sooner than it’s noticed. I was reading Paul Auster’s Invisible when you came around: there I was, seated, and the books, so many books, the smell of paper and ink and not much else. There I was, between Rudolph Born, Adam Walker, and the girl, like some absurd witness passing through. Page after page, I kept thinking of impulse, of its desire, that stuff things are made of. Invisible and I, just the two of us; then you came in. Desire returns. Invisible. Invisible. I read a few words but the image returns: you, going from book to book, skimming your fingers across the glossy covers, the paper that contains a whole world in another language. At some point, Born implies that the boy should be with his lover, with Born’s lover. I want to be in the world of the book, to be another character, to tell Born that the boy can be with his lover, with the French girl. It is not cycles of love, but of desire. Everything happens like in the book, but in the end, here we are, he and I, regarding ourselves slowly, without language. I think on the limits of devastation, of the rain that falls outside, of the little words the boy speaks without my understanding; I see his fair skin, his eyes meet mine in the empty air. There is no triumph, and there won’t be. It’s an image, nothing more, I tell myself. Before he left, his eyes came to rest on me again. It was futility that I felt, the idea of belonging only to a moment’s memory, the absence of everything, and of words.
LA FUNCIÓN
¿Quién diría
que la sonrisa es falsa,
la sonrisa
como dádiva piadosa,
tristemente dibujada
por la misma mano
que horas después,
—terminada la función—
borrará el trazo
con esa furia
que nos impone el silencio?
THE PERFORMANCE
Who could say
the
