Joanna Wiebe

Chaos, my lover,
is a three-masted schooner
arriving, anchor catching on
some jagged place I did not even know about.

Colored beads and mirrors are in my hands; I choke
in amazement, dazzled to see myself

at last.

Abandoning the scientific method, I lie very still
as you stride ashore.

Joanna Wiebe, April 3, 2007

For Tim

because
a snake with its mouth like a flower
lived here, the rocks of the field
sprang up to be a shrine

their domestic gravity
rips me through every tissue

calling me

with bells at the door,
dream furniture…

and with my heart’s full beating

I

touch

down.

O planet that enters my feet and takes my body! Not to know you.

To forget.

Joanna Wiebe, 1984

All moons, all years, all winds,

reach their fullness, and pass.

Blood flows to its silent thrones of power and authority.

The radiant gods

measure out our hours of celebration;

our days under the benevolent sun,

our nights under the stars.

And until time ends,

in vigilance,

these gods we have trapped within the stars,

look down us, our suns, and all our structures.

from the Chilam Balam de Chumayel, translated from Spanish versions, by Joanna Wiebe

Today on the train on the way to work I addressed the issue of this translation again, and came up with the version shown above. This is the poem which I intend to appear at the beginning of my book, wild and precious life, as a dedication.

I am much happier with this version than anything I have done previously. It’s shorter, for one thing, and flows a little better. Most of all, I think I have done a better job of capturing the thought in the last sentence.  Here are these batch of gods, supreme beings, all powerful and authoritative, whom we have drawn to us by our neediness. So they are attached to us and our stars, trapped in a way, by their ceaseless caring for us, but at the same time, they are above and beyond us, our suns, and our every concept of every thing.