Flower that Drops Its Petals
by Natalia Toledo, trans. Clare Sullivan
I will not die from absence.
A hummingbird pinched the eye of my flower
my heart mourns and shivers
and does not breathe.
My wings tremble like the long-billed curlew
when he foretells the sun and the rain.
I will not die from absence, I tell myself.
A melody bows down upon the throne of my sadness,
an ocean springs from my stone of origin.
I write in Zapotec to ignore the syntax of pain,
ask the sky and its fire
to give me back my happiness.
Paper butterfly that sustains me:
why did you turn your back upon the star
that knotted your navel?
A hummingbird pinched the eye of my flower
my heart mourns and shivers
and does not breathe.
My wings tremble like the long-billed curlew
when he foretells the sun and the rain.
I will not die from absence, I tell myself.
A melody bows down upon the throne of my sadness,
an ocean springs from my stone of origin.
I write in Zapotec to ignore the syntax of pain,
ask the sky and its fire
to give me back my happiness.
Paper butterfly that sustains me:
why did you turn your back upon the star
that knotted your navel?
— from The Black Flower and Other Zapotec Poems (Phoneme Media 2015)
for information about this poem and poet, see here.
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