Joan I. Siegel: Travel Directions

Abril es el mes de la poesía en Estados Unidos. Ello significa un mes en que los poetas van de pueblo en pueblo o ciudad en ciudad leyendo sus textos y hablando con el público. Hoy escuché a Joan I. Siegel, quien vive en el Valle del río Hudson. En mucha de su sencilla poesía asecha su visión del mal; pero ella no lo sabe. Elijo de sus textos, sin embargo, uno sin los tonos de sombra que me aterraron pese a la sala luminosa.

Travel Directions

There ought to be a word
for the way you know how to get some place
but don’t remember the names of the streets
the number of turns and blinking yellow lights
so that if someone asked
you really couldn’t say
except you know the road starts out straight
and when it’s sunny the branches blink across
the windshield making you want to rub your eyes
then the road turns sharply uphill past a red barn
where a black dog jumps out to race you for a quarter mile
and finally recedes in the mirror like a disappointment
and you remember the road dips downhill
into the shadows of the morning
where you hear Bach’s unaccompanied ‘cello
and understand what a good fit the ‘cello makes
in the hollow of the body
where grief begins and for an indeterminate time
the road winds vaguely past
houses people road signs
while time hums in your ear and you remember
the dream you left behind that morning
which had nothing
to do with where
you are going