From “Dissonance: Its Ridgelines”
Grader of roads throws the machine into gear. A course charted. Ridgeline in the back of the mind, is that dissonance. Warning: low shoulder. The body, the body claims a damaged shoulder, warning urgently of rain. The ridgeline behind a stand of aspens. Grader proceeds, ridgeline comes into a line of sight. Can’t look up to grasp its appearance. Not now, when words no longer mean, only the ache means anything. First there was blue. Then came gray. Elsewhere, yet not so far and to the east: a place called the piedmont, inside some other time.
Cacophonies.
Who take for clarity the jaundiced laughter of shadows, flexing.
People accelerating through mind and rain, inside silver, joints beside dementia, and ballooning outside the unwelcome, commands commanding who cares.
A neighbor’s return home to the hill and family.
With support from hospice.
Why fog strains toward the sky.
Dissonance,
its endless ridgelines.
Figure clearing the interior road in the wake of lightning. Leaves, small branches, halved trees blocking the north from the south. One we ticktacked past wishwash out of the White House, its skip, a not-yet end, under your gun. Are we undone. People people the the people the. The heaviness of the gray skies. Clear the road again. People the. Words line an edge between us, between are and good, just one edge, resting in the plane of a page. Life moved a little. These times seemed disconnected, a sleight of hand. This is how slight the slip: the last crust left from the pizza.
A roadside progresses in the colors of its detritus. One length of old needles fallen, an ordinary autumn drop, now gone orange. One length of fallen leaves, already adding up to brown. A resistant chicory plant standing its two bright blue flowers, the only flowers surviving this segment. Less than 100 miles from the. One length of curved twigs and branches, and if a snake died now, it would blend right in. Beaver marsh accompanying several segments with tall grass, shrubs, cattails, open water. Then back: to the branches, to the leaves, to the needles. See how lucid? All that is solid melts into sediment.
El inspector de caminos pone en marcha la máquina. Un curso trazado. Perfil de ladera en el fondo de la conciencia, ¿será esa la disonancia? Advertencia: arcén bajo. El cuerpo, el cuerpo reclama un hombro dañado, advirtiendo con urgencia de la lluvia. El perfil detrás de un grupo de álamos. La motoniveladora avanza, perfil de la ladera entra en un campo visual. No poder mirar hacia arriba para apreciar su forma. Ahora no, las palabras ya no significan, solo el dolor. Primero había el azul. Luego vino el gris. En otra parte, pero no tan lejos y al este: un lugar llamado piedemonte, dentro de otra época.
Cacofonías.
Que toman por claridad la risa ictérica de las sombras, flexionando.
La gente acelera a través de la mente y la lluvia, dentro de la plata, articulaciones junto a demencia, y se hincha fuera lo no deseado, manda al mando y qué más da.
El regreso de un vecino a la colina y su familia.
Con el apoyo del hospicio.
Por lo que la niebla apremia hasta el cielo.
Disonancia,
los interminables perfiles de laderas.
La figura despeja el camino interior tras un rayo. Hojas, ramas pequeñas, mitades de árboles bloqueando el norte del sur. Uno nosotros tictaqueamos más allá de la aguachirle de la Casa Blanca, saltito, un final que aún no tiene, a punto de mira de tu pistola. ¿Estamos deshechos? Gente pueblo la el pueblo la. La pesadez de los cielos plomizos. Despeja el camino de nuevo. La gente el. Las palabras trazan un borde entre nosotros, entre son y buenos, solo un borde, descansando en el plano de una página. La vida se movió un tanto. Estos tiempos parecían desconectados, un juego de manos. Así de leve es el deslizamiento: la última corteza que queda de la pizza.
El arcén avanza con los colores de sus detritos. Un largo de viejas agujas caídas, una gota ordinaria del otoño, ahora naranja. Un largo de hojas caídas, que ya se suman marrones. Una planta de achicoria resistente de pie con sus dos flores de color azul brillante, las únicas flores que sobreviven a este segmento. A menos de 100 millas de la. Un largo de ramitas y ramas curvas, y si una serpiente muriera ahora, se mezclaría perfectamente. Marisma de castores acompañando varios segmentos con hierba alta, arbustos, espadañas, aguas abiertas. Luego de vuelta: a las ramas, a las hojas, a las agujas. ¿Ves qué lúcido? Todo lo que es sólido se desvanece en sedimento.
Kristin Dykstra is a writer, literary translator, and scholar. Her poetry collection Dissonance: Its Ridgelines / Disonancia: Perfil de laderas is forthcoming with Rialta in a bilingual edition, tr. Tina Escaja. Dykstra’s translation of Amanda Berenguer’s collection, The Lady of Elche, is forthcoming from Veliz Books. Dykstra is principal translator of The Winter Garden Photograph, by Reina María Rodríguez, Winner of the 2020 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and Finalist for the National Translation Award. Dykstra’s poems appeared recently in Lana Turner 13 and 15, Seedings, Almost Island, Clade Song, The Hopper, La Noria and El Nieuwe Acá (both tr. to Spanish by Escaja), and elsewhere. Her recent translations and reviews appear in a variety of venues, some of which are Big Other, Latin American Literature Today, The Common, Two Lines, Astra, and The Rumpus.
Tina Escaja (Zamora, España / 1965): Escaja (a.k.a. Alm@ Pérez) is a Spanish-American writer of fiction, drama and poetry. In 2003 she won the Dulce María Loynaz Prize for Caída Libre. Escaja’s Respiración mecánica appeared from Icaria in 2014 with translations in Euskera, Catalan and Galician. In 2016 her Manual destructivista / Destructivist Manual appeared for the first time in Spanish within a bilingual edition, alongside its English translation. Escaja is also a digital artist and scholar. Many of her works transcend the book format to involve multimedia, incorporating video, interactive technology, robotics, and jazz; these have been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. She is considered a pioneer in electronic literature. Her digital artifacts include the series VeloCity (2000-2002), Código de barras (2007), the interactive novel Pinzas de metal (2003), the triptych “Emblem/as” (2017-2019) the robotic series “Robopoem@s” (2015-2020) and a performance piece with sheep, Negro en ovejas (2011). She is Distinguished Professor of Spanish and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Vermont. A selection from literary and digital projects appears at www.tinaescaja.com