Issue Thirty - Summer 2017

Lapis Lazuli

By Eugenia Toledo (Chile) from Map Traces, Blood Traces / Trazas de mapa, trazas de sangre, translated by Carolyne Wright

Lapis Lazuli

Sometimes the streets turn to memory
the cities imagine others
in that distance between words
between dream and reality
stories seeking refuge

for the one who has stayed or departed
the journey of the mind is the shortest
                        In this land one thing is true
                        copper powder means blue

Distances are measured by heartbeats
the pulse of welcoming hands
at night, solitude in every city
stories seeking refuge

for the one who departed or has stayed
the longest journey is to the heart
                        In this land one thing is true
                        blue means you

***

Lapislázuli

A veces las calles se vuelven memoria
las ciudades imaginan otras
en esa distancia entre vocablos
entre el sueño y la realidad
las historias buscando refugio

para el que se ha quedado o se fue
el viaje de la mente es el más corto
                        En esta tierra una cosa es verdadera
                         cobre en polvo significa azul

Las distancias son medidas por palpitaciones
el pulso de las manos de bienvenida
en las noches, soledad en cada ciudad
las historias buscando refugio

para el que se fue o se ha quedado
el viaje más largo es al corazón
                         En esta tierra una cosa es verdadera
                         azul significas tú

Copyright Toledo 2017

Eugenia Toledo was born in Temuco, Chile, and grew up in the same neighborhood as Pablo Neruda. She came to the U.S. in 1975 to pursue a Ph. D. in Latin American Literature at the University of Washington. She has published a study of the Spanish writer Fray Luis de León (Editorial Cíclope, Santiago); three books of poetry in Spanish, Arquitectura de ausencias, (Editorial Torremozas, España, 2006); Tiempo de metales y volcanes (Editorial 400 Elefantes, Nicaragua, 2007); and Casa de Máquinas (400 Elefantes, 2013); and a chapbook, Leaf of Glass, which won an Artella contest in 2005. At Seattle's Richard Hugo House, she has taught poetry writing in Spanish, and with Carolyne Wright, team-taught a course on Pablo Neruda. A bilingual manuscript of poems, Trazas de mapa, trazas de sangre / Map Traces, Blood Traces, written after her return to Chile with Carolyne Wright in late 2008, won a 2009 grant from 4Culture, and is forthcoming from Mayapple Press. Poems from this manuscript, in translation by Carolyne Wright, have appeared in basalt, Cirque, Hayden's Ferry Review, Lake Effect, Los Angeles Review, New Letters, Palabra, Poetry International, Rio Grande Review, ZYZZYVA, and the chapbook, La luz ambarina de la lluvia: Letras de Temuko / The Rain's Amber Light: Letters from Temuco. With her husband, she currently divides her time between Seattle and her native Temuco.

All work by