Verónica Zondek
Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver

look how you drop your elements/ your weight/ your drawing/ your handwriting/ and how like a supplicant you rush from hand to hand/ from body to body/ until you are left without clothing/ among voices and silences already muted by long-ago fires.

And yes/ there is hunger/ hunger of ancient density/ the kind that cannot be sated/ that eats the living forest/ that meanders the ominous cliffs/ that dreams the sea that in the beyond/ the waves/ the wind/ the sky/ the rainbow unfurled/ the full-throated man/ his song/ the words and their gales/ the timbers/ the birds of prey.

The lion is famished and descends the mountain...

Man is famished and accumulates...

from the book COLD FIRE / World Poetry Books
READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Forward Forward
"Guardian of time" is the tenth of twenty cantos in "COLD FIRE," an epic and lyrical poem of poignant urgency, a meditation on the quality and consequences of human interference in the natural world of Patagonia. The wind, with its omnipresent voice and versatile metaphoric essence, is an agent of destruction but also of possible resurrection and redemption. An intimate and irreducible exploration of our vulnerability, solitude, plunder, and death.

Katherine Silver on "Guardian of time"
Black-and-white headshot of poet Roger Reeves
"Short Conversations with Poets: Roger Reeves"

"I’m interested in forms, notions of composition, that weave together diverse and diffuse traditions and materials. I’m composed of so many different sounds, traditions of music, and spirituality; composed of various notions of what it means to be present and alive—and I always hope to sit with these sources in some sort of conversation, not an argument. I’m interested in speaking from, writing with the many tongues in my head."

via MCSWEENEY'S
READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES
It is only because of individuals like you that we are able to promote contemporary poets, translators, presses, and journals each and every day. A gift of any amount will enable us to continue our mission.
donate
Cover of the issue of the journal Epiphany, in which "Rat" first appeared
What Sparks Poetry:
Karen Leona Anderson on "Rat"

"To write vermin is to ask then who makes them faceless and liquid, seething, scheming, malicious, too much, over and over; who feeds them and then turns away, repulsed. (Was it me? Of course.) It’s to ask who is at home, inside; who is outside. Why vermin are women’s fault and their shadow, their shame and their labor, how making vermin is so much work to do and undo and who that work is for."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
Write with Poetry Daily
 
This April, to celebrate National Poetry Month, we'll share popular writing prompts from our "What Sparks Poetry" essay series each morning. Write along with us!

Consider what silences your writing and write to it. Address it directly.
View in browser

You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com
If you would like to unsubscribe please click here.

© 2023 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030

Design by the Binding Agency