jueves, 12 de diciembre de 2013

OBEDIAH MICHAEL SMITH. Poesía Actual de Bahamas



Obediah Michael Smith nació en New Providence, Bahamas, en 1954. Profesor de inglés y de Literatura. Realizó estudios de dramaturgia y de francés. Obra poética: Love, 1972; Bicentennial Blues, 1977; 43 Poems, 1979; Ice Cubes, 1982; Acts, 1983; Fruits From Africa, 1987; Once Upon A Blank Page, 1991; As If Creation Were His Crime, 1993; Soul of These Soils Sail of These Seas, 1996; Christmas Lights, 2003; Poems To Sit On To Shell Peas, 2003; On The Hinges of This Town, 2003; Seventy Poems, 2009; Open Testament, 2009.

Selección por Gladys Mendía




African Son

Nelson Mandela
died yesterday

like Hamlet said of Ophelia

he should have died hereafter

recall Orville Turnquest,
eulogizing someone

might have been when
he was GG of The Bahamas

was it his wife
or our first Prime Minister

he alluded to Shakespeare,
evoked this same sentiment

same phrase
these so very well arranged
five words

when someone
as great as Mandela dies
what do you do or say

how well tears
welling up and falling
without words convey

can I let words fall upon paper
as purely as tears

language and its devices,
at times,
what awkward mechanics

Victoria Falls,
thundering down,
its gushing white waters

weeping nature
nature weeping

at times like these
on such occasions

as well, what is evoked
what I recall

the idea that
there is in the world

a constant amount
of laughter and weeping
no matter what transpires

might be a constant balance also
of dying and being born

see-saw of life and death

the day Marius Petipa
great Russian choreographer,
86 and in despair,
wrote in his diary

all is wasted,
no one to carry on
my life's work,

George Balanchine was born

who, yesterday,
came into the world
when Mandela went out

when his candle,
after 95 years,
was extinguished
whose was lit

light and darkness
in the world
as well a constant

like the balance
of day and night

yesterday, I suppose,
the dark side of the moon
showed its face

Mandela done, Mandela dies
too full of days


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2013
Written in Mexico City

8:35 p.m. 06.12.13