The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems

Mobiles

Mobiles What a beautiful poem if I can write it. There's no shortage of tormented things, farm produce awaiting transport, and everything necessary: I must make dinner. Or supposedly ethical: someone knocking at the gate— Aunt Alzi hurries to the side yard to turn the panties crotchside down on the grass. An orange tree beginning to sprout: a precious wildness presenting thorns, miniature leaves, flowers whose petals cluster in beads of sweet-smelling gold. They explain the world as young chickens do, perfect down to the nails, a plumed, living, invincible delicateness no man ever made with his hands. Startled in bed with his hands over his ears, the young man was saying: I can't sleep; it's the music from the bar, that rooster of yours crowing at all the wrong times. Not true. It's because of life he can't sleep, because of the hum that life makes. He wants to get married and can't, his job is lousy, his pancreas a lazy ingrate. I'm married and suffer as much. The day goes by, the night, I step out of the shade and say: This is all I want— to sit in the sun until my hide is wrinkled. But the sun, too, will disappear behind the hill, night comes and passes over me; far from mirrors, I feed dreams of fame and travel, extraordinary men offering me necklaces, words 62 that can be eaten, they're so sweet, so warm, so corporeal. The trellis sags with flowers, I sleep a drunken sleep, judging the beauty of the world negligible, craving something that neither dies nor withers, is neither tall nor distant, nor avoids meeting my hard, ravenous look. Unmoving beauty: the face of God, which will kill my hunger. 63 Wesleyan Poetry in Translation from Arabic Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by c Alqama, Shdnfara, Labid, c Antara, Al-Ac sha, and Dhu al-Rumma. 1989. Translated and introduced by Michael A. Sells. from Bulgarian Because the Sea Is Black: Poems of Blaga Dimitrova. 1989. Translated and with introductions by Niko Boris and Heather McHugh. from Chinese Bright Moon, Perching Bird; Poems by Li Po and Tu Fu. 1987. Translated and with an introduction by J. R Seaton and James Cryer. from Chechoslovakian Mirroring: Selected Poems of Vladimir Holan. 1985. Translated by C. G. Hanzlicek and Dana Habova. from French Fables from Old French: Aesop's Beasts and Bumpkins. 1982. Translated and with a preface by Norman Shapiro; introduction by Howard Needier. The Book of Questions (Vols. I-VII in four books). 1976, 1977, 1983, 1984. By Edmond Jabes. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. The Book of Dialogue. 1987. By Edmond Jabes. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. The Book of Resemblances. 1990. By Edmond Jabes. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. from German Sonnets to Orpheus. 1987. The poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated and with an introduction by David Young. from Italian The Coldest Year of Grace: Selected Poems of Giovanni Raboni. 1985. Translated by Stuart Friebert and Vinio Rossi. from Lithuanian Chimeras in the Tower: Selected Poems of Henrikas Radauskas. 1986. Translated by Jonas Zdanys. from Navajo Hogans: Navajo Houses and House Songs. 1980. Translated by David and Susan McAllester. from Portuguese An Anthology of Twentieth'Century Brazilian Poetry. 1972. Edited and with an introduction by Elizabeth Bishop and Emanuel Brasil. Brazilian Poetry, 1950-1980. 1983. Edited by Emanuel Brasil and William Jay Smith. When My Brothers Come Home: Poems from Centra! and Southern Africa. 1985. Edited by Frank Mkalawile Chipasula. The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems of Adelia Prado. 1990. Translated and with an introduction by Ellen Watson. from Serbian Roll Call of Mirrors: Selected Poems of Ivan V Lalic. 1988. Translated by Charles Simic. from Spanish Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado. 1983. Translated and with an introduction by Robert Bly. With Walker in Nicaragua and Other Early Poems, 1949-1954. 1984. The poems of Ernesto Cardenal, translated by Jonathan Cohen. Off the Map: Selected Poems of Gloria Fuertes. 1984. Edited and translated by Philip Levine and Ada Long. About the Author Adelia Prado was born and has lived all her life in Divinopolis, Minas Gerais, Brazil, a landlocked state of rugged mountains, mines, and baroque churches. She says of herself, "I am a simple person, a common housewife, a practicing Catholic." Her family were...