Tú, Mar, y Yo y Ella
This series is one of my favorites so far. It illustrates an ongoing metaphor between the sea and a love affair, and takes a metaphysical tangent when time, setting, self and beloved become one entity. It’s vibrant, lush and sensuous.
YOU, THE SEA, AND ME AND SHE (1924)
Evaristo Ribera Chevremont
1
To what lands have you brought me,
Captain Corazón?
You have brought me to the land
of love?
The lemons, the limes,
the lemongrass. And sun.
The lemons, the limes.
Burning.
Women: tropical. Tropical:
foam, flower, fragrance.
Women: tropical. Tropical:
women. Land of love.
To what lands have you brought me,
Captain Corazón?
You have brought me to the land
of love?
2
The sea! The sea has brought you
in its tangle of algae.
A mermaid of the island in green and gold
A young shell has sounded on the beach.
The whole sea became music in my mouth.
The whole sea became music in my soul.
Because I saw you browning on the sand
in your mother-of-pearl shell.
3
I stretched out my net into the sea
and I caught in my net the nacre fish,
with green eyes and tail of gold.
The fish of nacre,
with green eyes and tail of gold,
I speak of the mermaids and the sirens,
of the underwater worlds,
of the ships anchored in coral caves,
of the drowned brides, with eyes like red flowers,
of the rings that fell to the bottom of the sea,
of the pearls with the phosphorescent lubricity of the sea,
of the wind that crosses the solitudes of the sea,
of the fisherman’s song and
of the sails that come from unknown countries
with soft breezes and perfumes.
The fish of nacre,
with green eyes and tail of gold,
I speak of the life of the sea,
of the magnificent life of the sea.
4
I saw you fall unconscious in the violets
by the autumn sea.
You arms were masts
in the golden air.
Your foot was the anchor
in the silence and depth.
Your hair was a curly wave
in the pearl beach of your neck.
5
The dog jumped into the sea
sniffed your flesh
in the veins of the sea.
I saw his eyes burned from the sun
dive into the immensity
to seise you when the waves
were biting your legs and arms.
The dog jumped into the sea
it howls on the beaches.
6
Grace and wave. Light. Live bait
to fish for living gold.
Undulation of the foam.
Blue of the infinite.
High in the air, your breast.
Your breast–tremor and rhythm.
Tropic areola–pearl
stained pink with blood.
And all of you, new, young
–burning fruit of myth
that is repeated in thesea
fishing for living gold.
7
Sun urchin I make an offering
in your secret whiteness.
They embrace the horizon:
Intoxicated blues entwined,
and marvelous clouds
flee from the immensity.
I am in you. You feel it
in your intimate sweetness.
8
I stretched out my net.
I stretched out my net into the sea
and I caught the laughter, the pride
and the mystery of the sea.
I stretched out my net.
I stretched out my net into your soul
and I caught the pain,
the fever and madness of your soul.
9
The smell of your body
is a cry from the sea.
a cry–broad, rough, arid,
that fills the immensity.
The smell of your body
—rock, seaweed, sand and salt–.
The smell of your body
blossoms from the delight
from the sexes of the sea.
10
The cave
in the stony mountain;
the sea and the black
rocks.
Iodine
in the herbs.
Shaking my flesh, electrifying
your braids.
And in the cave, fragrant
and fresh,
the sea, and me and you.
The three sunken into the earth.
11
The scent of sea grass
The scent of sea in the evening.
The scent of sea in your sex.
And light across the landscape.
Mirrors on my face.
Your pleasing bareness;
and the new delight
of sensuous waves.
The wave on you, curling;
the sky in you, vibrant;
the flower of the sea, filled
with the underwater waves.
You, the deep and cool,
the elusive and unfathomable,
wounding me in my soul,
the wounds becoming flesh in me.
12
Ideal creator,
in my new and sonorous arsenal
built ships that depart
towards eternity.
My ships bear your name
My ships bear your name
as a challenge
against the pirates of bronze and purple.
13
In the five points of the earth
fixed by the root of the sea.
Roots of rock.
The sea, and me and you
in the five points of the earth
we fixed a root.
Roots of our hearts.
14
Sea, mountain of blue,
full of rhythms.
Rhythm of immensity
that folds and unfolds,
that breaks and rejoins.
The wind that blows from the seaside
carries perfumes which are words,
<div style="margin-left: 240px; “>sounds which are fragments
of a music like that of worlds,
You, the sea, and me and she
we are strength, harmony and unity!
15
In the sand white and hot,
rumor of surf in your kisses,
phosphorescent green of your eyes
the lust and seaweed of your hair.
Soap bubble of the sea
–blue globe of your dream
shattered in the rock.
The rock–black tooth.
Click of the sea’s
tongue. How bitter it is inside the sea!
How bitter is the sea which guards
the treasures that I desire!
At the sea I breathe in the aroma
the harshness of your tresses
overturned in the sand white
and hot inside your deserts.
16
And said the sea:
–I have a shell.
And said the shell:
–I have a pearl.
And said she:
–I have you.
17
The sea rolls its ring onto the beach
–meditative eyes have the day–
The Universe contemplates simplicity.
The sacred vastness caresses me.
Through the sand of light and water, it runs
A childhood sound that revitalizes.
Games in bloom, jubilent laughter
and the great candor of an old truth.
At the edge of the sea–I, sailor
with blouse and cap and a boat like no other–,
I begin to dream of worlds and counties.
in a course of silvery lines.
And I knew the most distant harbors,
the cities most vague and transparent,
the songs most chimeric, forms
most subtle, most soft and timid.
The sea rolls its ring onto the beach
–greenish pools, sapphire regions–
And the kerchief of a wave, on the banks,
says goodbye to the most beautiful day.
18
You sprout between gigantic flowers,
whose corollas are like oceans,
Your hair is golden seaweed,
Your eyes–emerald shells–
they suck the blood from my heart.
Your ears–pink conches–
they are filled with the rhythm of beaches.
What light is there in your soul?
When you have an underwater heart,
there must be pearl within your depths.
Lead me to your domain.
Keep me in your domain.
And do not return
if it is not in the wave that rises
between the island and the stars.
Ah! You going? Give up?
You scoff?
If you are a ray of sun
in the carnival of foamy ribbons!
19
The sea,
the old sea,
of things profound,
of things inside.
The rock
of the inner sea,
firm, upright, grave
–contemplation
of solitude,
fist of silence.
The submerged rock
like a dream
of worldsbefore.
The sea
the old sea;
the sea, and me and you,
The three full
of things profound,
of things inside.
20
White egrets in the sea.
Blue circumferences
bespattered wings.
Wings, wings, wings.
The waves play with the beaches.
In the sand
your hat and your skirt.
In the sand
your laughter and kelp
from the sea.
Between one wave and the next
you are mine many times.
The sea
and your naked image between the rocks.
Blue circumferences
bespattered wings.
Wings, wings, wings.
21
Crab incarnate,
marine crab.
A battalion of froth.
Rocks. Semicircles.
The pain of your absence.
A longing to go with you
to the beaches covered
with sea snails.
Crab incarnate,
marine crab.
Blue and white
and infinite love.
How old the afternoon is
and what a child is the sea!
Heart, your boat
of paper has sunk!
22
Sea,
the night is in you.
You, the sea, and me,
alone;
and you speak to me
with your profundity and eternity,
with your mysteries and your worlds.
Here I am, without her.
Without her,
and with the fist on the waves.
I see sullen
stripes of blue phosphorescence.
I see distant flashes of searching as they pass.
The infinite, full of blackness,
trembles around me, as I grip the waves.
Shake your sand, sea.
And erase it, erase me,
so we may be in you
a great silence.
23
The worlds tremble in my face.
Worlds of red, blue and pink.
Only you, the sea, has my secret.
Only you, sea.
Only you.
