This Translation Tuesday, we bring you poetry from Chilean poeta Cristalina Parra’s debut collection Tambaleos. Translated from the Spanish by Julián David Bañuelos, “Return” is a tidal wave of nostalgia–overwhelming and sweet.
Return
while swapping my papers, my mountains for the
desert gulf, i think about the reflections of clouds
cloaking the Santiago Mountain or the sun–
rise measuring the length of your face, slowly
cracks the day, there, the winds cross
the valley, the leaves sing and the clouds dance, I
hear the music you sent and the music we listened
to while running from the pigs, i think of all
the shellfish in this cold ocean and how the squids,
before death, try for the shore, i see,
my mother’s eyes in the morning and my father ringing
the doorbell, atop his bike, without shoes, his olive
skin, i think about the pup attempting their first
steps and the whiskey i threw back with my cousin
while playing Charlie Garcia’s keyboard and
chatting about the void we both understood, I think of the sunrise
for the first time in three years.