dos marinos

Lorca, Barbarous Nights

 dos marinos 

     Dos Marinos en la Orilla

        Federico García Lorca

        1

Se trajo en el corazón

un pez del Mar de la China.

A veces se ve cruzar

diminuto por sus ojos.

Olvida siendo marino

los bares y los naranjas.

Mira al agua.

        2

Tenía la lengua de jabón.

Lavó sus palabras y se calló.

Mundo plano, mar rizado

cien estrellas y su barco.

Vió los balcones del Papa

y los pechos dorados de las cubanas.

Mira al agua.

I am sitting in the rocker on the upstairs sun porch, listening to Tito Puente. The old dog is curled up – so far as his old bones will let him – on the rug at my feet.

     I have read “Dos Marinos” twice through. I read it again. I am looking for a word or a phrase to float up from the page and into my mouth; I will swallow it, see how it sits on my stomach.

     Two phrases pick at me. I am wondering how the first sailor can have forgotten the bars and the oranges – maybe some of them, but surely not all – and what does his forgetting have to do with his sailoring. And, I am wondering about what the pope on his balcony has to do with the golden breasts of the Cuban women. It’s not that I believe they are not connected, both no doubt proudly on display. Vanity!

 “Vanity, vanity,” saith the Preacher. “All is vanity!”

Maybe so. And maybe not. Is the vanity of the Pope, dressed in his rich robes and high miter, the heavy cream-colored cloth stitched with gold thread, not only vain but also breathtakingly real for the faithful. He raises his right arm, extends his first and second fingers, and they receive his blessing. This day at least will go well.

     And the full, creamy-golden breasts of the Cuban women, nipples the color of dark rum pushing against the thin cloth of their dresses, they are not air, they are flesh: And why shouldn’t they be proud of them? The sailor that gazes on them, why shouldn’t he feel blessed? This afternoon and evening will go well.

     This day, this afternoon and evening, will they be forgotten, too, like the bars of other evenings ashore, the oranges for breakfast the next morning. (How do we forget?)

I read the poem through again - and again. So what do I see now? What do I hear, taste, smell, what rubs against my skin?

     My mind wants everything to come together in one place, a bar on the beach at Varadero, orange trees in the courtyard, a large, stuffed fish mounted high on one wall, a stylized photo of the Pope giving his blessing instead of a television over the bar. And at the bar, the women in their low cut dresses, leaning toward the sailors. The sailors inhaling their perfume mixed with the tangy smell of the oranges, and the sharp salt of the sea air. They raise their eyes from the golden breasts and look over the golden shoulders and out the open window to the water, rising into gentle hills and washing against the shore.

For all its attractions, we can’t seem to stay – we can never quite be - where we are. We are always thinking of where we must be going.

     That is why all is – all this, everything now (the Pope, the golden breasts, the rocker, the dog, Tito Puente, the sun on my shoulders) – all here and now is vanity, as the Preacher cries out, a mist [הבל]^ we keep squinting to see through. Across from where I sit, several books on Revelation. Catching my eye: Harrington’s Understanding the Apocalypse, the ultimate looking away from the present –"Forward, forward!" it cries. (Everlastingly forward!)

     Forward not to the orange I may eat at lunch, not to wondering this evening at Roz’s nakedness as she changes for bed, not even to imagining some future trip to Havana or Rome, but dragged by the longest of ropes into the fictitious time way, way, and way away from here when a sword-wielding Christ will come swooping down with his band of angry angels, one of whom will surely lop off my head.

04.10.17

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 ^ The Hebrew translated “vanity” means literally “fog” or “mist.”