#163 Waiting Up (Maryann Corbett)

Desde hace rato me "cruzo" con Maryann Corbett, aunque me he perdido el par de lecturas poéticas que ha hecho en mi universidad. Todos los poemas con los que me topo me han impresionado. Catherine Tufariello, a la que trajimos el otro día al jardín, dijo de uno de sus poemarios: "Suffused and haunted by history, the poems in Maryann Corbett’s wonderful new collection, Mid Evil, derive their beauty and power from their fidelity to what is true, in the poet’s life and in ours. Among the truths these impeccably crafted poems witness and affirm is the continuing presence of the past. There are transformations and transubstantiations in Mid Evil—Corbett is a deeply Catholic poet—but they are hard-won and provisional, never the products of smoke and mirrors."

El poema de hoy lo he sacado de esta entrevista en First Things. Tremendo cómo logra hacer sentir una angustia que nunca he sentido, que me han contado, y que el poema ha hecho real. Es uno de los poemas de su primer poemario.

(via)

WAITING UP

Not home. Not home yet. Four A.M. Unknot me,
God whom I less than half believe my help.
Damp down the pounding underneath my scalp.
Unhook the gut-tight line of fear that's caught me
listening for cars, oh me of little faith.
They've seized their own lives, laughing, “Go to bed!”
And God, I hate her—hate the hag in my head
who mutters, praying through her gritted teeth,
make them come home, come home. God, shut her up.
Let me believe the thousand times they've come
home safe will make the door click one more time
and lock behind them. Free me from the trap
of thinking your ideas of safe and home
might not (my God!) be anything like mine.