Silvia Guerra
Translated from the Spanish by Jesse Lee Kercheval & Jeannine Pitas

Consider, my soul, this texture rough
to the touch, which they call life
—Rosario Castellanos
V

Consider, my soul, this which is a compact structure
for a moment, and then diffuses, among the clearings that the shadow
seeks. Trying to grasp this watery memory that evades you
sumptuous, like silk through your fingers.
To a primary root it bows, but it doesn't give up.
It doesn't reach the inaugural water, doesn't get wet.
Stone by stone the building of lines rises against the sky.
The patios. The silence: the gardens.

And the recovered shadow is back
With diffuse air, with the afternoon that evades
all possibility of memory, the stone of the awning.

To whom does this texture speak, wet gravel on a large
surface, on a barren land?
from the journal AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW
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Silvia Guerra draws many of her images from the Uruguayan coast and countryside, not in a simple, narrative way, but as symbols of the exploration of her own consciousness. Her poems are meditations which play with transformation and transmutation and through all her work runs a hunger for meaning, for a reason to exist. We are delighted to share her diffuse “compact structure,” in all its astonishing strangeness, with you.

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