Susan Ayres, JD, PhD, MFA
Professor
School of Law, Texas A&M University
In 2016, Vermont College of Fine Arts accepted me into its low-residency MFA program for creating writing, with a concentration in translation. I was very fortunate that then-dean (Andy Morriss) of the Law School supported me in this endeavor, as the current dean (Bobby Ahdieh) has continued to do.
I began translating Elsa Cross’s poems in 2017, and have met with her in Mexico several times to work together on the translations. Elsa Cross is an award-winning poet (of many poetry prizes, including Mexico’s highest literary prize, the National Prize of Arts and Literature), and has published over 30 volumes of poetry. She is also a Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Religion at UNAM in Mexico City.
My project has involved translating a short volume of haiku sequences, Chapultepec Park, 7 A.M., and a longer volume of elegies, Nadir (2010). I have also put together a chapbook of my original poems.
Below is a variation of one of Cross’s poems from Chapultepec Park, 7A.M.—as a variation, it is what John Dryden calls “paraphrase” or “translation with latitude.”
THE MOON—A FOLKLORE VARIATION
For Apolonia Carrasco Sergi
In ghostly silver
the full moon comes to the ground,
encircles the branches.
Like fog, the moonlight
wanders among the bare trees:
souls of the lost.
The new moon covers
you with frosty hands during
the month of October.
The moon is lost.
No matter how much you search,
she stays hidden.
You look, but you can’t see
behind the shimmering veil
of her outline.
She comes out to show
her face, looks around, then returns
behind the clouds.
Now she travels quickly,
showing her silver lining
and her smile.
Her flight is crossed
by a silent and intent
devil’s consort.