The Tree is Older than You Are

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Jone (the poetry postcard queen!) at Check it Out for Roundup.

First, some congratulations are in order:
let's send up some balloons for Laura Shovan whose THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY won the Cybils Award for Poetry!! What a wonderful choice! And the 2017 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award goes to... SOMOS COM LAS NUBES/WE ARE LIKE THE CLOUDS by Jorge Argueta, illus. by Alfonso Ruano (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press).  Here's a link to my earlier post on this book. Yay for happy poetry news!

And now, thanks to my sweet friend Sarah at Shine Memoirs, I've been reading THE TREE IS OLDER THAN YOU ARE: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems and Stories from Mexico with Paintings by Mexican Artists selected by Naomi Shihab Nye.

What a gorgeous book! I am in love with several of these poems and the artwork, too. One poet in particular, Homero Aridjis, caught my heart, so I have ordered one of his solo poetry books. More on this soon! I also discovered his daughter Chloe Aridjis is a novelist. Oh how the TBR stack grows! Meanwhile, please enjoy these selections.

2 of my baby spoons (recently discovered!)Noche en la cocina

De su vaina salen los chicharos
rapidas sombras vedes
junto a una chuchara sola

- Homero Aridjis

Night in the Kitchen

Peas come out of their pods
quick green shadows
by a single spoon

(translated by Eliot Weinberger)



Gala and Granny Smith
Sitting on an Orange Plate
(photo by me!)La manzana

Sabe a luz, a luz fria,
si, la manzana.
Que amanecida fruta
tan de manana!

- Jose Gorostoza

The Apple

Yes, the apple tastes of light,
cold light.
That's it, the apple!
What a lively fruit
so much like morning!

(translated by Joan Darby Norris and Judith Infante)



Fox Sparrow, courtesy of Bird Watcher's DigestSi el gorrion perdiera sus alas

Si el gorrion perdiera sus alas
la casa su techo
y la mesa sus patas

si el aguila en la altura
y la mujer en la plaza
de pronto se deschicieran

si la ciudad con sus torres
y el volcan con sus hoyos
cayeran en un pozo

si los cominos
si los gatos si los ojos
perdieran para siempre el camino

si la Terra se precipitara
en u espacio negro

si no hubiera mas cuerpos
si no hubiera mas luz

el canot seguiria

- Homero Aridjis


Should the Sparrow Lose Its Wings

Should the sparrow lose its wings
the house its roof
and the table its legs

should the eagle in the skies
and the woman in the market
crumple into bits

should the city with its towers
and the volcano with its craters
fall into a well

should the roads
should the cats should the eyes
lose their way for always

should the Earth launch itself
into a black hole

should there be no more bodies
should there be no more light

the song would still sing

(translated by Martha Black Jordan)