Andrea Cote-Botero
translated by Gordon E. McNeer
The Snack
Also, remember, María,
four o’clock in the afternoon
in our fiery harbor.
Our harbor
that was more like a foundered bonfire
or a desert
or a lightning flash.
Remember the burning ground,
us scratching the back of the earth
as if to dig up green fields.
The old house where they gave out the meals,
our plates brimming with onions
that my mother salted for us,
that my father fished out for us.
But in spite of everything,
you know,
we would have liked to entice God
to preside over our table,
God, but without Word
without miracle
and only so that you might know,
María,
that God is everywhere,
and also in your plate of onions
even though they make you cry.
But above all
remember me and the wound,
before they grazed from my hands
in the wheat fields with the onions
to turn our bread
into our everyday hunger,
and so that now,
that you no longer remember
and that bad seed nurtures the wheat fields of all that has
disappeared
I may reveal to you, Maria,
that you are not to blame,
nor is your memory to blame
as this is time
and this is its task.
Broken Port
If you only knew that outside the house,
tied to the shore of the broken port,
there is a river burning
like the sidewalks.
That when it makes landfall
it is like a collapsing desert
and it brings along burning grass
to ascend the walls
even though you are given to believe
that the wall disturbed by climbing vines
is a miracle of humidity
and not from the ashes of water.
If you only knew
that the river isn’t made of water
and it doesn’t carry boats
or lumber,
only bits of seaweed
grown on the chests
of sleeping men.
If you only knew that the river runs
and that it is like us
or like everything that sooner or later
has to sink into the earth.
You don’t know,
but I’ve seen it once:
it forms part of the things
that when they are leaving
it seems that they will stay.
Stone House
It was common
and lackluster
and melancholy
in its expression,
so we turned our backs on our father’s stone house
to swirl our flowery
and sunny skirts
in our dried-up port.
For the first time
and without a nanny,
we skirted the arcade in the afternoon,
anything to avoid seeing
the stony hands of my father
darkening everything,
seizing everything,
his words of stone
and hail
raining on the garden of drought.
And us in flight toward whitewashed streets
and noonday street theater
and them repeating
at the stone door:
fourteen years old,
short skirts,
brand new red shoes.
We were voracious for music
and for happiness
and frolicking,
before the shining sidewalk,
before being stopped cold
and speechless
witnessing the desolate scene,
the loss.
Then silence,
not the daily hustle and bustle,
intrudes.
Silence,
as the fact is there are thirty-two coffins,
empty and white.
A Special Lesson Concerning Old Things
I’ve already said
I don’t know who invents the smell of houses,
don’t know.
Even more if what you like is a bird’s eye view of
the dilapidated sight of the rooftops
and the lackluster walls
and the fences
and the grimy doors of the old houses around here.
Even more,
if you no longer remember that
it’s not about the smell
but the goodness of things
on showing off their defeat.
Armies
I go out into the world every certain number of years.
I leave taking a name with me
and a part in it is humiliated
irremediably.
I leave in armies
and in obscure herds;
and I do it to be able to speak of you
and I do it to not talk to you.
I go out into the world.
I move about in your young roots
I move about in your beloved walks.
I travel to put a little bit of the road in me.
a little of the road in you.
I go out on this ceremony
and I do it to believe in you,
and I do it so that you will believe in something again.
I move about because there exists something incommunicable
and because I’ve seen how much you love the things that return.
Andrea Cote-Botero, (Barrancabermeja, Colombia, 1981) is the author of Port in Ashes (Ed. Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá, 2003), Fragile Things (in Transmutaciones Ed. Extremadura, Mérida, 2010), A Nude Photographer (Ed Panamericana, Bogotá, 2005) and Blanca Varela or Writing From Solitude (Ed. Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 2004). She has obtained the following recognitions: The National Prize of Poetry from the Universidad Externado of Colombia (2003), the Puentes de Struga International Poetry Prize (2005) and the Cittá de Castrovillari Prize (2010) for the Italian edition of Scorched Port. She was a member of the organizing committee for the International Poetry Festival in Medellín.
translated by Gordon E. McNeer
The Snack
Also, remember, María,
four o’clock in the afternoon
in our fiery harbor.
Our harbor
that was more like a foundered bonfire
or a desert
or a lightning flash.
Remember the burning ground,
us scratching the back of the earth
as if to dig up green fields.
The old house where they gave out the meals,
our plates brimming with onions
that my mother salted for us,
that my father fished out for us.
But in spite of everything,
you know,
we would have liked to entice God
to preside over our table,
God, but without Word
without miracle
and only so that you might know,
María,
that God is everywhere,
and also in your plate of onions
even though they make you cry.
But above all
remember me and the wound,
before they grazed from my hands
in the wheat fields with the onions
to turn our bread
into our everyday hunger,
and so that now,
that you no longer remember
and that bad seed nurtures the wheat fields of all that has
disappeared
I may reveal to you, Maria,
that you are not to blame,
nor is your memory to blame
as this is time
and this is its task.
Broken Port
If you only knew that outside the house,
tied to the shore of the broken port,
there is a river burning
like the sidewalks.
That when it makes landfall
it is like a collapsing desert
and it brings along burning grass
to ascend the walls
even though you are given to believe
that the wall disturbed by climbing vines
is a miracle of humidity
and not from the ashes of water.
If you only knew
that the river isn’t made of water
and it doesn’t carry boats
or lumber,
only bits of seaweed
grown on the chests
of sleeping men.
If you only knew that the river runs
and that it is like us
or like everything that sooner or later
has to sink into the earth.
You don’t know,
but I’ve seen it once:
it forms part of the things
that when they are leaving
it seems that they will stay.
Stone House
It was common
and lackluster
and melancholy
in its expression,
so we turned our backs on our father’s stone house
to swirl our flowery
and sunny skirts
in our dried-up port.
For the first time
and without a nanny,
we skirted the arcade in the afternoon,
anything to avoid seeing
the stony hands of my father
darkening everything,
seizing everything,
his words of stone
and hail
raining on the garden of drought.
And us in flight toward whitewashed streets
and noonday street theater
and them repeating
at the stone door:
fourteen years old,
short skirts,
brand new red shoes.
We were voracious for music
and for happiness
and frolicking,
before the shining sidewalk,
before being stopped cold
and speechless
witnessing the desolate scene,
the loss.
Then silence,
not the daily hustle and bustle,
intrudes.
Silence,
as the fact is there are thirty-two coffins,
empty and white.
A Special Lesson Concerning Old Things
I’ve already said
I don’t know who invents the smell of houses,
don’t know.
Even more if what you like is a bird’s eye view of
the dilapidated sight of the rooftops
and the lackluster walls
and the fences
and the grimy doors of the old houses around here.
Even more,
if you no longer remember that
it’s not about the smell
but the goodness of things
on showing off their defeat.
Armies
I go out into the world every certain number of years.
I leave taking a name with me
and a part in it is humiliated
irremediably.
I leave in armies
and in obscure herds;
and I do it to be able to speak of you
and I do it to not talk to you.
I go out into the world.
I move about in your young roots
I move about in your beloved walks.
I travel to put a little bit of the road in me.
a little of the road in you.
I go out on this ceremony
and I do it to believe in you,
and I do it so that you will believe in something again.
I move about because there exists something incommunicable
and because I’ve seen how much you love the things that return.
Andrea Cote-Botero, (Barrancabermeja, Colombia, 1981) is the author of Port in Ashes (Ed. Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá, 2003), Fragile Things (in Transmutaciones Ed. Extremadura, Mérida, 2010), A Nude Photographer (Ed Panamericana, Bogotá, 2005) and Blanca Varela or Writing From Solitude (Ed. Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 2004). She has obtained the following recognitions: The National Prize of Poetry from the Universidad Externado of Colombia (2003), the Puentes de Struga International Poetry Prize (2005) and the Cittá de Castrovillari Prize (2010) for the Italian edition of Scorched Port. She was a member of the organizing committee for the International Poetry Festival in Medellín.