Fifthlogic
Air
is the key to water
The wind is the voice
of the earth
The pomegranate
is the sister of the heart
Quintológico
La llave del agua
es el aire
El viento es la voz
de la tierra
La granada
es la hermana del corazon
Note: Granada is also a cognate for grenade.
Man Walking Across a Bridge to Lhasa
A man stopped. He balances, hands in pockets. Halfway across a bridge.
Suspended over the ravine, he inches toward the stone face of a mountain.
The bridge inclines, the way up, along the trembling pathway is not easy.
The bridge is narrow, could be the road to righteousness the ancients tell us.
The bridge bows, under the weight of the man passing, not an apparition or a spirit.
The bridge sways in the breathe that travels up the canyon.
The canyon frames a silk painting of clouds.
Or it is the clouds forming a curtain behind which Lhasa
or paradise or success in the world, or simply the future lies, hidden.
Carlos Reyes’ latest book of poetry: The Book of Shadows; New and Selected Poems (2009). Other recent books: At the Edge of the Western Wave (2004) A Suitcase Full of Crows (1995) (a Bluestem Prize winner and finalist for 1996 Oregon Book Awards). His books of translations: Poemas de la Isla/Island Poems by Josefina de la Torre (Eastern Washington University Press, 2000). Reyes’ translation of the Obra poética completa (Complete Poetic Works) of the preeminent Ecuadorean poet Jorge Carrera Andrade, was published in 2004 in a bilingual edition in Ecuador. His translation of Ignacio Ruiz-Pérez' s "La señal del cuervo/The Sign of the Crow" is due out in Spring, 2011. He is the publisher/editor of Trask House Books, Inc. In 2007 he was awarded a Heinrich Boll Fellowship to write on Achill Island, Ireland and in 2008 was awarded the Ethel Fortnter Award from St Andrews College. He was recently the poet-in-Residence in the Joshua Tree National Park. Reyes lives in Portland but travels often to Ireland and is a frequent visitor to Spain and Ecuador.
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