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"I Know Your Body", "Whirlwind" and "The Afternoon Fell"

by Victor Terán.

Translation and introduction by David Shook

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Translator’s Note

The poetry of bathos is, for the most part, easy to translate: sentimentality is fairly easy to render into another language because it is universally understood. What is more difficult to translate, in my experience, is poetry that toys with sentimentality without ever crossing into its territory, poetry that counterbalances abstraction with precision. And that's Víctor Terán's poetry. This talent is most evident in his love poems. He ends a poem about a breakup as follows:

Though you left me, how can I abhor you?
You left me with an ocean of dazzling fish,
an ocean of incessant fish.

And in another about the beauty of his lover's body, he counters bold, almost pastoral statements with a comparison he develops through the poem, as demonstrated below:

If you were a city
I could give perfect directions
to wherever they asked me.

As in the first example, Terán often gets away with an abstract or maudlin line by deploying one of his typically fierce images in the line that follows. In his poem, "Whirlwind," he balances the romance of his "heart stretched across the bed, waiting," with these lines:

. . . the pigs make known
that they attack the boy squatting to do his business.

It is difficult to approach the edge of sentimentality without crossing it, and it is equally difficult to get as close to that edge as Terán has managed in Isthmus Zapotec. This funambulism is even more significant an achievement for Terán considering the state of the language, a Zapotec dialect spoken by fewer than a hundred thousand inhabitants of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca, Mexico. In many of the villages of Oaxaca, Spanish has already displaced Zapotec as the language of the family; others have cloistered the language in their homes. At this stage of language attrition, nostalgia-drenched poetries often writhe in overt politics and accounts of their romanticized demise. Terán's hometown of Juchitán, where the Zapotec still keep their doors open, remains a beacon of Zapotec language and culture.

In Isthmus Zapotec there is a special expression reserved for missing an appointment, "cuxhidxi tobi zinnña," which literally means that someone is rustling the leaves of the palm tree. "Caxidxi zinña" means "palm leaves rustle," and it is commonly used to express the grumbling frustration of the person who waited in vain for the no show and who, according to Zapotec tradition, has been mocked by their nonappearance. In the case of this poem, the shame caused by that missed appointment is the reason why the north wind, which usually assaults the isthmus between October and February, beats so ruthlessly on the village.

The indigenous poetries of Mexico deserve more attention than that granted by the novelty of their exoticism. Of these poetries, Nahuatl poetry is probably the oldest written American poetry, recited by its tlamatinis ("habitual knowers of things") from pictoglyphs, "singing the painted books," for more than two thousand years before their colonialization by the Spanish. The Nahuatl tradition still thrives today, perhaps the largest contemporary indigenous tradition of Mexico, in both oral and written forms. Contemporary Mexico is home to over two hundred living languages—including more than fifty dialects of Zapotec, many not mutually intelligible—and a wide variety of poetries. Of the Zapotec poets writing today, Terán is the most lyrical, the most assaultingly imagistic. Though his poems can be some of the most difficult to translate, they are often the most successful English renditions of the contemporary Zapotec tradition.

 

I Know Your Body

I know your body,

entirely I know you.

If you were a city

I could give perfect directions

to wherever they asked me.

I like all of your body,

I like to see you talk, laugh,

move your head. Your two well-rounded hills

are the honey of bees, where my lips celebrate to the gods.

I would have liked to continue storming your forest,

lodgings made deliberately for a nice death.

You were created with love,

your body is worthy of praise. What an honor to have lived,

to have been. I am no longer bothered

when men turn to look at you,

I am no longer impatient when you undress.

You are a stag in the air. A raft of flowers

that snakes across the river by morning.

There is no part of your body that I do not know, there is no

part that I do not like. I want to keep being

the light stunned at the look of your white

roundness of flesh. I want to keep

living

in the beautiful city

that you are.

 

 

 

Whirlwind

The dust dances in the middle of the path.

The leafy trees compete to make the most elegant curtsies.

My heart stretched across the bed, waiting for you. Quiet eyes,

the air tangles your hair, quiet, the pigs make known

that they attack the boy squatting to do his business.

 

And you, what would you be doing this instant.

Do you by chance know what it is to anticipate

a woman’s touch

after twenty waiting years?

 

The dust dances in the eclipse of my eyes.

A chestnut romps through the paths of my blood.

Perverse woman, where the hell are you, what the hell are you doing.

I’ve already counted each of the sun’s fingers,

the gust of wind quit exciting the street, silenced by fatigue.

It is twilight, the sky is filled with shadows,

in my hands it lies dying,

the turtledove that dreamed of cooing you to sleep.

 

 

The Afternoon Fell

From your throat

a broken cry,

a red cry

entirely whole

rolled on the bed.

 

The afternoon fell,

I knew

because of the two brave shoes

that resonated through the street.

 

I spilled my breath

over your shoulders,

while my vigorous and headstrong hands

grew weak, releasing your body

until it was one with me on the floor.

 

The afternoon was sinking in,

I knew it fully

by the slow movement

of your eyelids.

Guidúbilu’ runebia’ya’

Guidúbilu’ runebia’ya’,

guidúbinaca peou’.

Pa ñácalu’ ti guidxi

ratiicasi ninabadiidxa’ cabe náa

naa nulué’ pa neza riaana ní.

Riuuládxepea’ guidúbilu’,

riuuladxe’ guuya’ guiní’lu’, guxídxilu’,

guzeque yannilu’. Dxiña yaga guiropa’ dani

zuguaa ndí’ xtilu’, ra guyaa’ dxiqué

rigucaa’ ruaa bidó’. Ñacaladxe’ rua’

ñuá’ ne niree ndaani’ guixhidó’ xtilu’,

ni guya’ dxiiña’ guiluxe guendanabani ndaani’.

Biza’naadxi’ bido’ guzana lii, qui gápalu’

ra guidiiñeyulu’. Binnindxó’ nga naa

ti bibane’ lii, guca’ lii. Yanna ma cadi naa

ridxiiche’ gudxigueta lú ca nguiiu ra zedi’dilu’,

ma cadi naa racalugua’ cueelu’ lari.

Ti bidxiña lubí nga lii, ti balaaga’ guie’

ziguite yeche’ lu guiigu’ ti siadó’.

Gabati’ lii nou’ qui ñunebia’ya’, nou’

qui ñuuladxe’. Pa ñándasi ñácarua’

biaani’ ruxheleruaa ruuya’ ca nduni

yuxido’ quichi’ beelaxa’nalu’. Pa ñándasi

nibeza rua’

ndaani’ guidxi sicarú

ni nácalu’.

 

 

Yudé cuyaa

Yudé cuyaa galaabato’ ná’ tapa neza.

Ca yaga nagá’ caguíteca’ tu jmá naguudxi deche.

Ladxiduá’ nexhegaa lu luuna’ cabeza lii. Bezaluá’ zuba,

rinaaze’ bi guichaíque, zuba, cugaba’ panda bihui

culaa xii ti xcuidi zubaxuuna’.

 

Laga lii ya’, xi cayuni ndou’ nagasi.

Nannu’ xiinga guendaribeza ti gunaa

gueeda guxhídxiná’

lu gande iza xtí’ ti badunguiiu la?

 

Yudé cuyaa galaabato’ bizaluá’.

Ti mani’ canareeguite ndaani’ ca nezarini xtinne’.

Gunaa bazeendu’, xi binidxaba’ cayu’nu’ qui gueedu’.

Ma’ bigaba’ birá bicuininá’ gubidxa,

bi yooxho’ ma’ bigani lu neza, bidxaga ruaa,

cachuundu’, ma’ nacahui guibá’,

ndaani’ naya’ nexheguundu’ guguhuiini’

guleza lii.

 

 

Huadxí que ziyaba

Biluuza ti ridxi

ndaani’ yánilu’,

ti ridxi naxiñá’

guizá’ dxichi

bitubi lu luuna’.

 

Huadxí que ziyaba,

gunna ni naa

ti lu neza binadia’ga’ zixidxi

chuppa guidibo’co’ nayeche’.

 

Bindaate’ xpié’

cue’diágalu’

laga ca naya’ naazedxiichi’,

ziyuí’ xtípaca’, ziguxooñe’ naca’,

ziyabaneca’ naa guidxilayú.

 

Huadxí que ziyaazi’,

gunna’ dxindxe’ piá’

ti biiya’ cayábayati

ca lágalu’

 

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