Blossoms in the Night (1918) by Paul Klee, by Ericka Ghersi (translated by Toshiya Kamei)

Blossoms in the Night, by Paul Klee (Switzerland) 1918.

Flores de la Noche (1918) de Paul Klee
 
Estás en el jardín del gran cuadro,
eres alta y en tu piel
se han posado hormigas.
 
Estás echada sobre azahares
y desde tu vientre
la nube que elegiste
gira y ya no ves su perfil,
pero su cuerpo es aún perfecto,
un girasol invertido en la noche
que cruza el puente de la luna negra.
 
Voltea la mirada, muchacha.
Ve y hiere la hierba,
que no sea la luz la que interfiera,
sino el cielo.
Sube rápidamente muchacha al castillo rojo
y lánzate hacia el fondo del cuadro
para tocar sus imperceptibles espacios en blanco que
se descubren en tu movimiento torpe.
Una vez allí, recoge a las hormigas que reposan a las orillas del río
y llévalas al jardín,
allí circularán por los charcos de la noche.
 
Finalmente, corre hacia fuera, pero no voltees, muchacha
porque los golpes que vienen de adentro
podrían agobiar tu andar
en el camino que
 
no has de volver a ver.

Ericka Ghersi

Blossoms in the Night (1918) by Paul Klee

You're in the garden of the large painting,
you're tall and on your skin
ants have settled.
 
You're lying among lemon blossoms.
From your womb
the cloud you chose
turns and you don't see its profile anymore,
but its body is still perfect,
an up-side-down sunflower in the night
that crosses the bridge of the black moon.
 
Turn around, girl.
Go and hurt the grass.
Don't let the light meddle,
but the sky.
Climb up to the red castle, girl
and hurl yourself toward the bottom of the painting
to touch its imperceptible spaces
found in your awkward movement.
Once there, pick up the ants resting on the riverbanks
and take them to the garden.
There they'll go around the puddles of the night.
 
Finally, run outside, but don't look back, girl
because the blows that come from inside
could wear out your gait
on the path that
 
you won't see again.
 
Ericka Ghersi (translated by Toshiya Kamei)

This poem first appeared in Parthenon West Review.
​
Born in Peru, Ericka Ghersi obtained her PhD from the University of Florida. She currently lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she is an Associate Professor at Santa Fe College. She is the author of the poetry collections Zenobia y el anciano (1994) and Contra la ausencia (2002). Her poems have also appeared in the bilingual anthology La Canasta.

Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas. His translations include Liliana Blum's The Curse of Eve and Other Stories (2008), Naoko Awa's The Fox's Window and Other Stories (2010), Espido Freire's Irlanda (2011), and Selfa Chew's Silent Herons (2012). Other translations have appeared in The Global Game (2008), Sudden Fiction Latino (2010), and My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010).