Anis Bread and Guava Atole by Benjamín Valdivia

Anis Bread and Guava Atole*

Let’s suppose that everything is as it may be.
That one afternoon you walk over there over the time,
lost and simple as a fruit on the land.
By other ways, other step, another path walks
and comes to perch on you.
You have just arrived at the wrong world.
We walk unison on the strange spot of the afternoon.
To the place we arrived and
(supposed to the validity of the greedy mirage)
we tasted the types of bread and atole₁.
Consecratory rite over the years
to find, after everything has happened
that nothing has occurred.

1-. A thick Mexican drink made of cornmeal, water, raw sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.
*Translation to English by Marjha Paulino.



Anis Bread and Guava Atole

Supón que todo sea como fuere.
Que una tarde caminas por allí sobre el tiempo,
extraviada y sencilla como un fruto por la tierra.
Por otros lados otro paso otro sendero camina
y en ti viene a posarse.
Acabas de llegar al mundo equivocado.
Caminamos unísonos el extraño paraje de la tarde.
Hasta el lugar llegamos y
(supuesta la vigencia del ávido espejismo)
degustamos las especies del pan y del atole.
Rito consecratorio debajo de los años
para encontrar después de que ha pasado todo
que nada ha sucedido.

Image: Teresa Villegas

Benjamín Valdivia (1960) is a Mexican, philosopher, literary critic, translator dramatist and poet. He has won several awards including the Internacional Poetry Award Le Courrier de l'Orénoque in France, 1991, the National Poetry Prize San Juan del Río 1991, the International Poetry Prize Publius Vergilius Marone, in Italy, 2003, the Poetry Prize by the Accademia Internazionale il Convivio, in Italy, 2003, among others.