Through her verses, the author invites readers into a journey of introspection about female maturity, exploring acceptance of the body and the soul at fifty-five. Here, time is not an enemy, but a teacher of slowness and truth.
At Zenda we offer five poems from Woman Facing the Mirror (The Tailor of Apollinaire), by Isabel Marina.
***
WOMAN FACING THE MIRROR
Stand here, still standing,
try to wake up,
if possible.
And if not, it doesn’t matter.
Fall asleep on the edge
of your fifty-five years.
But learn that most of your life
has already passed,
and that is irrefutable.
Then,
kiss your face in the mirror,
caress its contours.
You are the one you tried to escape from,
but you have arrived here
and it turns out you are beautiful.
That the story they told you
was only a lie,
a damned fairy tale.
***
VOLUPTUOUSNESS
Oh, voluptuousness of knowing I am aflame
by a fire of adolescence
that does not wane, despite my age.
Oh, to know myself free
to savor the defeat of a life
in the humility of the page.
The certainty that the jungle
keeps a place for me
among the figures of Wilfredo Lam.
A flash of glory and purity
like my mother’s house in ruins
after seventy years.
In the midst of autumn,
this voluptuousness,
this rare glow.
***
UNINHABITED HOUSE
The palms open toward the silence
from which all prayers come.
The struggle has finally ended.
No one knows when dawn will rise again.
The airplane cleaves the sky
writing our names.
One by one, they pass by
since time immemorial.
What luck to have walked
along this gravel path,
surrounded by hydrangeas.
What luck to have had
the company of another human being
against the cold and fear.
The plants finally grow freely
around us.
Clean air settles
beside our uninhabited house.
There inside we remain alone,
facing our true self.
***
YOUR OWN VOICE
Everything you didn’t do then
you are doing now.
In your hands burn the shapes
of a time lost, far away.
Songs are the echo
of an adolescence you do not remember.
Moans in the schoolyard
the star that accompanies you.
It knows that worrying is useless
or trying to fight the waves of the sea.
That in the maturity of the body
its disintegration is already foreseen.
And it is your right and your duty
to listen to your own voice.
***
IN THE FORM OF A HYMN
The sun seeks to strike our eyes,
to be the sole protagonist of that song
that makes the moving dune dance
on the beach of Laredo.
I connect with myself,
attuned to the knowledge
to which I strive to arrive
with every verse.
The sun does not spill in vain,
nor does the obedient dog kiss my skin,
to sit, without hope,
in a corner of the house.
Pain transfigures itself.
The epiphany manifests
upon the dune
in the form of a hymn.
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Author: Isabel Marina. Title: Woman Facing the Mirror. Publisher: El sastre de Apollinaire. Availability: All of her books.