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The Puerto Rican Literature Project The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Plan (trans.)

Michelle Rodríguez-Olivero

Translated from the Spanish by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera

2024

Star you are a plate

spinning senseless

on the axis 

of the word 

Destruction.

 

I am no longer interested

in human men

or women.

 

Now I only look at The Point.

That which lacks figure

or shadow.

 

Over there,

far from me,

the solar system soon dizzies. 

I have a seat

exempt from gravity,

screwed to the jaw

of a black hole.

 

I am all myself the earth.

In me fit 

the many tender earths.

 

Translator's Note

 

Sadly, the alliteration of the final verse is lost in the English version, but the assonance remains as well as the (now slightly indirect) parallelism between "tierra" ("earth") singular and "tierras" ("earths") plural. I have been able to capture the play between "earth" (as in dirt) "Earth," (the planet), but sadly have lost the third meaning of "earth" (as in land, and sometimes even homeland), in the English. This poem's atheist point of departure is a contestation to God's Divine Plan or "Designio divino," Unfortunately, "designio" alludes to the Christian connotation far more than "Plan," 

 

Rights: Michelle Rodríguez-Olivero

Designio

Michelle Rodríguez-Olivero

2024

Astro eres plato

girando sin sentido

sobre el eje

de la palabra

Destrucción.

 

Ya no me interesan

los humanos

ni las humanas.

 

Ahora sólo miro El Punto.

Aquello sin figura

ni sombra

 

Allá,

lejos de mí,

se marea el sistema solar.

Yo tengo un asiento

exento de la gravedad,

atornillado a la mandíbula

de un hoyo negro.

 

Soy toda yo la tierra.

En mí caben

todas las tierras tiernas.

Rights: Michelle Rodríguez-Olivero