A rake
Translated from Reina María Rodríguez’s Poemas de Navidad (2018) by Kristin Dykstra
A small plane moves above the coastline
dragging a banner with drawings
and words hard to make out
under the wind.
They aren’t poems. They’re advertisements,
slogans for a happy Sunday
by the sea.
Foam grazes the birds who descend
and stumble.
It’s a sea that doesn’t cleanse the spirit,
because it brings us more garbage
than we dump into it,
deep under the water.
It’s a comfortable coast,
a proper coast
among umbrellas and nice towels
that open to the Atlantic
(and to prosperity).
One orange rake sits abandoned
between us
with no child to pick it up
equidistant
between you and me
we contemplate the sea
from opposing coastlines
with no consolation.
Reina María Rodríguez is the author of more than thirty books of poetry and prose. Among other awards too numerous to list in full, Rodríguez holds two Casas de las Américas Awards for Poetry (1984, 1998), the Alejo Carpentier Medal for Cuban literature (2002), Cuba’s 2013 National Prize for Literature, and the 2014 Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Award for Poetry; she was a Finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. France named her Chevalier in its Order of Arts and Letters in 1999. Her recent books include Achicar (U. Autónoma de Querétero, 2021), Luciérnagas (U. Autónoma de Querétero, 2017), El piano (Bokeh, 2016), Prosas de La Habana: Variedades de Galiano (U. de Valparaíso, 2015), and The Winter Garden Photograph / La foto del invernadero (bilingual; Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019). The Princeton University Library holds her papers.
Kristin Dykstra is principal translator of The Winter Garden Photograph by Reina María Rodríguez, Winner of the 2020 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and Finalist for the National Translation Award. She organized and introduced a May 2021 dossier dedicated to Rodríguez in the digital magazine Latin American Literature Today. Previously she translated numerous poetry editions, such as books by Juan Carlos Flores, Marcelo Morales, Tina Escaja, Rodríguez, and others. Selections from Dykstra’s own current poetry manuscript appear in Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion, Seedings, Clade Song, The Hopper, La Noria (with translation to Spanish by Escaja), and Acrobata (with translations to Portuguese by Floriano Martins). Her essay “Ensenada,” co-translated with Juan Manuel Tabío, appeared in Rialta in September 2021.