Three Californian poems by Manuel Murrieta-Saldivar (*)
–Translated from Spanish by Maximiliano Rodriguez, CSU-Stanislaus–

I’ll be able to love/without so much effort because my nightmares/have faded/in the fluttering of spores/the opening and closing of a sunflower/and in the unbroken shelters of the stream…

POETRY

Cover of the book where these poems are published in Spanish

Date of publication: 20- June 2025

California flowers

To Shanti, my California flower

No one revealed to me the charm of your flowers,

California,

the ones you hide beside our great ocean,

they were never announced on any show or newscast.

 

So beautiful and with a scent without name

one I immediately wanted to adorn upon the face of love.

 

Nor did they tell me that I would find them soon

along with edible herbs,

our cacti,

surviving the holocaust of the initiatory rites

the one that devastated my ancestors,

the curve of the rivers and the wind-blown pines

so that later rails would appear,

the architecture of those skyscrapers,

the precision of several freeways that ensnare Los Angeles.

 

They were under the last sky

wild still,

infant sunflowers, seductive rosemary,

infinite mustards, bridal daisies,

California poppies

holy herbs, tense lilacs, indigenous carnations,

mallows and marigolds

intertwined with lilies and violets as if in solidarity,

protecting themselves from the furious footsteps

and suspecting that, without the grace they already possess,

they could easily be annihilated.

 

Flowers that neither appear

on gas station maps

or on digital navigators,

petals we are called to search for

either because our intuition demands it

or because the loving voice that goes with me

becomes a guide

leading me toward discovery:

 

I bring them close to my hair

I trap them with the canvas of an embrace

I protect them from new constructions

of luxury residences, gas pipelines,

shopping centers, and fast-good stands

and I transplant them to the Eden of my memory,

I plant them, here, in my poem

or in a safe patio

just in case,

tomorrow,

the holocaust was to return again…

 

Sequoia

For Vidal, who also hugged a sequoia

Sequoia…

I’m touching

your elephant-like trunk

rising over two thousand years

of ferns

and snow.

 

You burst with your mane

into the heights

as if you inhabited,

now,

the clouds

that I cannot reach.

 

But I also

embrace

your new chlorophyll,

I penetrate the humidity

that surrounds you,

here, in your paradise,

the only hiding place

I have left.

 

Sequoia,

how I would like

to penetrate your roots,

—foundations of the sap

that you deliver as oxygen—

to know what was the original fiber

that pierced the first lava.

 

You were born for me

and for the civilizations that harass you

because you are the only witness,

the calendar itself stamped

in your ancient cavities.

 

In that vein, I want

to navigate through your galleries,

inhale the budding of the initial life’s chrysalis

be your shell facing the maelstorm

and the attack of the sun.

 

Sequoia…

I know what you offer me:

the warmth of your indestructible cabin,

that you will toss me away transformed

into a cone, a pine nut

 

or perhaps, privileged,

you will make me be your seed

like that which awaits, every July,

the mountain fire

to sprout

later into a shoot

—a colossal factory

that turns gases into blue.

 

What a privilege

to be your descendant,

what a prodigy

to no longer hear the jet fuel,

but the murmur

of your vegetal rings

saving you

from our destructive harshness

or when you reveal to me

how many more centuries

you can accompany us.

 

Please let me kiss you,

Sequoia,

grandmother of vegetation,

let me address you as if you were one of my relatives,

with familiarity, at least today,

for my head wants

to rest on your filaments,

to take care of you, I beg you,

not only with hugs

nor with the promises of an ecologist,

but like a gardener

who leaves words

and transforms thereupon into fertilizer.

 

Because now you reveal to me,

our Sequoia,

that one more reason

for being born is to come here,

before you,

to prostrate myself at last

on your terrifying trunk

and glimpse that still,

after all,

you burst with life

with your evening protuberances

that know no age

or height limits…

S

Transmutation

With a murmur of primeval night,

the depths of the forest wrap around me like a blanket

I embrace—I make love to—the planet

and surrender to its heated vibration.

 

I scratch its virginesque genesis,

but the calm is total:

not even the buzzing of an insect

impedes this happiness I don’t deserve…

 

What joy to know that I am a breeze

that the branches yet release oxygen

and that I walk alongside the sun, abandoned by civilization:

 

Before me, there are no sins,

not even a human being,

but the last dew, the despair of an ant,

the colors of birds I can’t name

and friendly squirrels at my door:

the waterfall senses me

in its fall of barely the breadth of a second…

 

And now, in the open air, I’ll fade away

turned into snow or solitary pollen

but I won’t try another hiding place,

but rather, I’ll head toward nowhere

or to the next town

with my dreams heading straight for you:

 

Now I’ll be able to love

without so much effort because my nightmares

have faded

in the fluttering of spores,

the opening and closing of a sunflower

and in the unbroken shelters of the stream…

(*) Originally published in Spanish in the poetry collection Los días primigenios. Editorial Orbis Press. Turlock, California, USA y Editorial Giraluna. Caracas, Venezuela. October 2021. More information: 
https://orbispress.com/imagenes/sentimiento/los-dias-primigenios.htm

Contact the autor: manuelmurrieta@orbispress.com

Contact the translator: maximiliano.rod96@gmail.com