Tracy K. Smith - Vida en marte

The Museum of Obsolescence THE MUSEUM OF OBSOLESCENCE So much we once coveted. So much That would have saved us, but lived, Instead, its own quick span, returning To uselessness with the mute acquiescence Of shed skin. It watches us watch it: Our faulty eyes, our telltale heat, hearts Ticking through our shirts. We’re here To titter at the gimcracks, the naïve tools, The replicas of replicas stacked like bricks. There’s green money, and oil in drums. Pots of honey pilfered from a tomb. Books Recounting the wars, maps of fizzled stars. In the south wing, there’s a small room Where a living man sits on display. Ask, And he’ll describe the old beliefs. If you Laugh, he’ll lower his head to his hands And sigh. When he dies, they’ll replace him With a video looping on ad infinitum . Special installations come and go. “Love” Was up for a season, followed by “Illness,” Concepts difficult to grasp. The last thing you see (After a mirror—someone’s idea of a joke?) Is an image of the old planet taken from space. Outside, vendors hawk t-shirts, three for eight.

El museo de la obsolescencia

Cathedral Kitsch

Catedral kitsch

At Some Point, They’ll Want to Know What It Was Like

En algún momento querrán saber cómo fue

It & Co.

Ello y Cía.

The Largeness We Can’t See

La grandeza que no podemos ver

Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?

¿No te preguntas, a veces?

Savior Machine

La máquina de salvación

The Soul

El alma

The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

El universo: banda sonora original

Two

Dos

The Speed of Belief

La velocidad de la creencia

It’s Not

No es

Three

Tres

Life on Mars

Vida en Marte

Solstice

Solsticio

No-Fly Zone

Zona de exclusión aérea

Challenger

Contrincante

Ransom

Rescate

They May Love All That He Has Chosen and Hate All That He Has Rejected

Deben amar todo lo que él ha elegido y odiar todo lo que ha rechazado

Four

Cuatro

The Universe as Primal Scream

El universo como un alarido primitivo

Everything That Ever Was

Todo lo que siempre fue

Aubade

Alborada

Field Guide

Guía de campo

Eggs Norwegian

Huevos a la noruega

The Good Life

La buena vida

Willed in Autumn

Deseo de otoño

Song

Canción

Alternate Take

Toma alternativa

Sacrament

Sacramento

When Your Small Form Tumbled into Me

Cuando tu pequeña forma desciendió hasta mí

Us & Co.

Nosotros y Cía.

Notas

Agradecimientos

Is God being or pure force? The wind

Or what commands it? When our lives slow

And we can hold all that we love, it sprawls

In our laps like a gangly doll. When the storm

Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing

After all we’re certain to lose, so alive—

Faces radiant with panic.

¿Dios es ser o fuerza pura? ¿El viento

O quien lo ordena? Cuando nuestras vidas se ralentizan

Y podemos retener todo lo que amamos, descansa

En nuestro regazo como una muñeca de trapo. Cuando la tormenta

Arrecia y nada nos pertenece, perseguimos

Todo aquello que con certeza perderemos, llenos de vida,

Rostros radiantes de pánico.

There will be no edges, but curves.

Clean lines pointing only forward.

History, with its hard spine & dog-eared

Corners, will be replaced with nuance,

Just like the dinosaurs gave way

To mounds and mounds of ice.

Women will still be women, but

The distinction will be empty. Sex,

Having outlived every threat, will gratify

Only the mind, which is where it will exist.

For kicks, we’ll dance for ourselves

Before mirrors studded with golden bulbs.

The oldest among us will recognize that glow—

But the word sun will have been re-assigned

To a Standard Uranium-Neutralizing device

Found in households and nursing homes.

And yes, we’ll live to be much older, thanks

To popular consensus. Weightless, unhinged,

Eons from even our own moon, we’ll drift

In the haze of space, which will be, once

And for all, scrutable and safe.

No habrá bordes sino curvas.

Líneas limpias apuntando siempre hacia adelante.

La Historia, con su rígida columna y sus esquinas

Gastadas será sustituida con matices,

Igual que los dinosaurios dieron paso

A montones y montones de hielo.

Las mujeres seguirán siendo mujeres, pero

Su cualidad estará vacía. El sexo,

Tras haber sobrevivido a todas las amenazas, dará placer

Sólo a la mente, y sólo en ella existirá.

Para entretenernos, bailaremos con nosotros mismos

Ante espejos decorados con bombillas doradas.

El más anciano de entre nosotros reconocerá ese brillo,

Pero la palabra sol habrá sido reasignada

A un dispositivo Estándar Neutralizador de Uranio

Localizado en hogares y asilos.

Y sí, viviremos mucho más tiempo, gracias

Al consenso general. Ingrávidos, desquiciados,

A eones de nuestra propia luna, vagaremos

En la neblina espacial, que será de una vez

Por todas, clara y segura.

We like to think of it as parallel to what we know,

Only bigger. One man against the authorities.

Or one man against a city of zombies. One man

Who is not, in fact, a man, sent to understand

The caravan of men now chasing him like red ants

Let loose down the pants of America. Man on the run.

Man with a ship to catch, a payload to drop,

This message going out to all of space .…Though

Maybe it’s more like life below the sea: silent,

Buoyant, bizarrely benign. Relics

Of an outmoded design. Some like to imagine

A cosmic mother watching through a spray of stars,

Mouthing yes , yes as we toddle toward the light,

Biting her lip if we teeter at some ledge. Longing

To sweep us to her breast, she hopes for the best

While the father storms through adjacent rooms

Ranting with the force of Kingdom Come,

Not caring anymore what might snap us in its jaw.

Sometimes, what I see is a library in a rural community.

All the tall shelves in the big open room. And the pencils

In a cup at Circulation, gnawed on by the entire population.

The books have lived here all along, belonging

For weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequence

Of family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,

A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.

Charlton Heston is waiting to be let in. He asked once

[politely.

A second time with force from the diaphragm. The third time,

He did it like Moses: arms raised high, face an apocryphal white.

Shirt crisp, suit trim, he stoops a little coming in,

Then grows tall. He scans the room. He stands until I gesture,