This work is born from memory and direct experience with the forest fires on the island of La Palma. This poetry collection pays a sincere tribute to the island landscape, the resilience of the Canary pine, and the experiences of the local people facing the fire.
At Zenda we offer five poems from Corchas negras (El sastre de Apollinaire), by Ricardo Hernández Bravo.
***
along the burning shoulder
lead-heavy the sun bears the weight of the hour
the old man walks, grounded by his shadow
bent beneath an invisible girdle
he advances on the sticky pitch
his withered spine tilting toward the earth
claimed where the blackness swells
from a car stopped a few steps away
two youths dismount and approach
perhaps intending to determine a direction
an old habit
a reason or faith
of a life gone astray
but the old man, upon seeing them, moves forward:
stooped on his staff
stretched toward another abyss that closes in on him
he points with his gaze
to the dry broom grass
the fields of stubble without cattle
the bed of pine needles in the ditches
kindling, may God spare us
and with eyes unfocused
wet with smoke
from distant fires
the dragging along at the ankles
the old man recedes with his rumination
he fades away into the calima
***
silent fellowship
of beings and objects
within the inhabited enclosure
where walls and bodies
converge toward a common center
like an inner courtyard where light enters
the openings to the dry air of this afternoon
as the advancing front presses forward
we hastily set parapets at doors and windows
lest the flame reveal the missing knot
the weakness of the glass
the torn edge of the curtain where I hold on
in case the house endures and the skin
***
you see it coming
and there is no preparation, no feet, no way to go
no protocol, no line and against
the blaze in the carved wood
and release the animal wherever it may roam
***
desperate to save what is ours
we laid backfires
without measure that afternoon
and again and again it slipped past us
and ran at its will through what belonged to all
the flame
kindled by so many hands
stoked
***
my stand on the earth
what does it obligate me to do
what sacrifice does it demand
what courage or unknown will
makes me plant myself here
grown in this fate
as if pulling at a sturdy
sap that rises from below
through secret channels
the limbs untied
this energy
from which I am born
this waste as I move against the flame
the tear ducts dried
the dark ring around the lips
dust and sweat bound more tightly than ever
upon the exposed skin
everything
so that the fire does not reach
the root
so that the moisture does not disappear
from the material where we find shelter
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Author: Ricardo Hernández Bravo. Title: Corchas negras. Publisher: El sastre de Apollinaire. For sale: Todos tus libros.