CARMEN BELTRÁN
Carmen Beltrán was born in Logroño, Spain in 1981. She has her degree in humanities and is a member of the Asociación Cultural Planeta Clandestino (Underground Cultural Planet Association) as well as Ediciones del 4 de Agosto (August 4th Publications). She has collaborated with literary magazines such as Portales, Fábula y Bart and has published a book of poetry Prohibido jugar [Playing Prohibited] (CELYA, Salamanca, 2005) as well as several poems and short stories in different compilation books. She was the coordinator for the book La otra voz. Poesía femenina en La Rioja [The Other Voice. Feminine Poetry in La Rioja] (Ediciones del 4 de Agosto, 2005). Her poetry has also appeared in the anthology La verdadera historia de los hombres [The True Story of Men] (Eclipsados, Zaragoza, 2005). Currently she is the coordinator of the Aula Literaria de Logroño [The Literary Lecture Hall of Logroño] as well as the literary magazine Portales.
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Winter Poem
I walk alone on the street now
Slowly, so as not to slip
I look up and see steam on the window panes.
A young boy in the window.
Alone.
A girl about my age in pajamas.
Alone in another window.
More steam through which I cannot make out the faces.
Everyone is waiting for the sky
to pour down frozen cotton without fury,
for the white cloak to freeze the sadness
of this season with an embrace,
for the spectacular snow to bring them
(perhaps the only big hug of the day)
heat from the touch of other bodies
which huddle together behind each window
to contemplate the sweet shrapnel of winter.
But a clear sky is opening
and a sun ray, cold like steel
strikes the shy and sleet filled window panes
which gave so much light to the afternoon.
The sun has never been so disappointed.
The steam dissolves,
the faces become hidden in their routines
and I keep walking alone on the street
(more alone if you like)
cursing this untimely January sun.
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Cold
Nothing is palpitating below the ice.
I soon found out that under your cold skin
there never lived any heartbeat
nor any murmur of blood.
Begin, my friend,
by considering an ends to the other
and not the means
and perhaps you will save yourself from dying
frozen.
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Growing
It's always autumn on the calendar.
The months dry up and the leaves,
sometimes parched by a very sweet heat,
other times frozen in distress,
keep falling
hushing
falling.
As this fashion
of tree that I am
ages,
I continue to better understand the forest.
Weeping willow
I have harmed myself a thousand times before,
I have poked around my bark with knives
(where would that vitality hide
which so painfully kept me alive?)
I poked around my roots with my fingers
crazy about trying to hollow me out
about denying me nutrition,
I rummaged through my heart of shattered wood,
I touched it and my breathing halted.
Foolish, stubborn tree,
I didn't know that such a pain would save me
or that, by chance,
it would only succeed in making me stronger.
*Poems translated from the Spanish by Andrés Alfaro
If you'd like to read the originals, check out Carmen Beltran's Afinidades Electivas page HERE.