LLANO

No se si fue una alucinación el sonido de hélices,

 

Debajo vi lodo que se fundia  y encima las faldas del Avila y

 

los jardines de la Finca de San Martin.

 

Alli en el  banco nos encontramos en que

 

Paez entre batallas con su enamorada.

 

 En mi inocencia te contaba todo y

 

Ni siquiera te oculte cuando fue mi amante.

 

 Tu seguiste fingiendo indiferencia.  

 

Pero al siguiente dia me pasaste en la calle sin una mirada

 

Aunque casi rozándome el vestido. Me voltee para seguirte

 

de vista. Y como la esposa de Lot me converti en columna de sal…

 

El tiempo no pasaba, la sangre no fluia.

 

Lo que trajiste del llano se quedo en el llano.

 

El cielo inmenso y azul como ningún otro.

 

El sonido raspado del cuatro, el grito nocturnal del jabalí

 

La culebrita tierna en tu mano, la esmeralda del colibrí.

 

Y día tras día el llanero seguia  la caza del jaguar

 

mientras que este sigilosamente lo seguía.

 

 Al descender hacia ese barro pasaba mi vida

 

                                               Los tonos sagrados rezumbaban en mi ser                                                  

                                                                  

                   Me acorde de todo, todo menos de tu nombre.                        

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                 

 

                                                                                                                                  Antonia Baranov                                           

                                                                                             

 

LLANO

In my dream as I fly over churning mud

I recognised Finca de San Martin on

Avila’s folds, where it was said that Paez

in between battles met his mistress on

 the very bench we did.

  I was told by the caretaker of the Finca,

     that in colonial times a Countess was

 exiled there

in her quarters with her slaves.

 

In my innocence I prattled on about my encounters,

                           and even when I told you he had become my lover

 you feigned indifference.

The next day without a glance you walked pass me .

 I turn to gaze at your retreating back and like

 Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt….

Time stopped, blood did not flow

And with this act you took back all you brought from the Llano.

The endless azure of its sky, the din of the cicadas at dusk,

The viper tender in your hand, the nigh cry of the jabali.

 anaconda’s long sleep in the grass, the emerald of the colibri

llanero’s hunt for the jaguar and jaguar’s stalk of him .

As I descend into that red mud, I remembered all but your name.

                                                                                                      

 

                                                

 

 

                                                                                                           Antonia Baranov                   

 

 

 

Sequel

Obliquely filling the gaps of my life by recall of years.

 1971 did not bring forth any memory as it should only by

reference of 1972 it fell into place as year my last son was born.

 But by 1976 my life had unraveled on various levels and divorce.

 The Summer was fraught with conflicts, as well as waves of joy,.

as visiting children his and mine, came and went like flocks of birds.

 At end of season in lieu of thanks for my travails he disappeared.

 The Winter that followed was quiet and she who had been his wife

Clambered up to top of my stairs and with tremulous hands held

 mine in gratitude and with this gesture did much to mitigate..

 In Spring in those carefree Berkeley days when locking

 doors was still a choice, he came in through back door

to lay on my blue chaise longue in wait. As I entered saw first

his pharaonic profile outlined on opposite wall.

His presence by then was as unexpected as undesired.

He launched into explanations that were no longer of interest.

In those days in my circle it was not uncommon to ‘drop

acid’ despite its distortions before embarking on a life decision.

I offered him to join but he declined. I assumed it was due

to a generational divide, though he was still under forty…

It was a Spring ritual, not lightly taken as Eucharist previously.

In the moonlight as he fll asleep I scrutinised him intently.

 And said in ’sotto voce,’ “Does he intend to avoid me again?”

What followed was a silent battle that lasted hours,

time was at a standstill. No worse, it seeped backward into

 the hourglass. I sat crouched like a cat on edge of chaise,

and finally close to dawn he began to speak, so cogently,

 as if he had been listening to my thoughts…

The argument internally went: can this relationship based

on false premises and little else be recovered? And why?

Can I credit myself with compassion? Or that I had met my

match in perversity and curious how it would play out?

 Other more convoluted reasons occurred to me...

 A visiting friend from Paris, Dorian commented on my

reluctance to leave him, said, “ Even Christ paid his karmic debt

 with only three days of agony! ” A statement so absurd in its

grandiosity it lingered and would produce peals of laughter!

 This went on for days, nay, years until we grew weary…

As way of a parting gift I pulled all the pages of my journal

 and slid them into his. To make certain nothing was lost

 nothing was left unsaid? I did learn from him among

other things that even suffering was an act of volition...

There were no winners here, nor assigned guilt.

We separated in Autumn and limped away from each.                                                           

                                                                 

                                                                            Antonia Baranov

Llano 12-18

                                                                               

    In my dream as I fly over churning mud

        I recognise the Finca de San Martin hidden    

         on Avila’s folds where it was said that

          Paez in between battles met his mistress

on the very same bench we met.  

   I was told by the caretaker of the Finca,

 that in colonial times a Countess was         

           exiled in there with her slaves.            

 In my innocence I prattled on about my encounters

and you feigned indifference until I told you he become my lover.

Then you walked pass me in the street without a word.

 I turn to gaze at your retreating back and like

 Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt….

Time stood still, blood did not flow

And with this act you took back all you brought from the Llano.

The endless azure of its sky, the din of the cicadas at dusk,

The viper tender in your hand, the nigh cry of the jabali.

anaconda’s long sleep in the grass,

Llanero’s hunt for the jaguar and jaguar’s stalk of him .

     As I descended into that red mud,

I remembered all but your name.

                                                                                                      

                                                                 Antonia Baranov

                                           

                                                                                                                                           

                                                            

Silence

Enveloped by your absence

who had been in rhythm with

you as with my beating heart.

How could it have escaped my

notice reason for your silence,

those months when I left for

France? It had been in plain

sight had I been willing to see.

Or perhaps I needed to obscure

that which heart could not endure?

I rode to forest of St. Germain

to read your letter in private.

In it for the first time heard you

mention intent to divorce.

I was moved, never dared

to hope for it. Continued to write

but without response...

At a loss to account for your

silence I fled to wait in Paris.

About this I already wrote a poem.

Have you not observed that

thus far she remains nameless

who had been between us?

Better it so be, for the dead

are defenseless in their silence.

                                   Antonia Baranov   

                                  

                         

                                   

Dorothy's Tale

 Some memories we carry are not our own

you may think this so obvious it bears no mention?

But her memories seeped into me so deeply

that I can hardly distinguish them from my own.

And yet there wasn’t anything particularly

striking about the woman.

 On foggy mornings like these as I sat in a cafe

I listened abstractly as she chattered on,

 about her life, travels. It surprised me she was a doctor.

For her time it must have been rare.

She was I believe closer to seventy than sixty.

She offered that she was born in Amarillo, Texas,

 though by then she had lost her drawl but not,

 I must say, her manners.

I think her name was Dorothy but could not swear to it.

It did happen forty years or more ago. Or she could have

reminded me of the heroine of the Wizard of Oz.

These are the tricks that memory plays on us.

It amused me to imagine her as a flapper!

She was girlish for her age and gave impression she had not wed,

as her body had a wooden quality such as one not rent by childbirth?

 With each morning coffee her life came into sharper focus.

 You may well ask why I did not more directly ask her about

 her first love, her first heartbreak? I may have been distracted

or I was not then, in the habit of asking questions.

  After school, one bleak Texas afternoon

 she told me she found her house emptied

 of people and possesions

 except for a mattress on bare floor

and her saddle askew against the parlor door.

 A letter pinned had instruction but no explanation,

to sell her saddle if she could or pawn in next town

 and some bills for fare to rejoin family South.

She realized her Father had sold her horse,

and ran through the fields until she saw him,

 stand alone on the other side of fence,

looking out at meadows that had been his home.

She called out his name and softly whistled .

She stroked his forehead and soft muzzle.

They leaned against each other a long while, until dark. 

 She told me her last act had been to sweep the floors

 and wash windows, placed a jar of marigolds on window sill,

 as a small token of pride for the life she had lived.

In the morning she lugged her saddle across the fields

to the train station and bought a ticket North.

She never returned to Texas or rode a horse again…

All these years I have held these memories

for her and felt them seared in my flesh.

It seemed that she had need of a stranger’s ear,

to let go of them and to hold them close.

                                                                                                               

Antonia Baranov

Before The Revolution

Before the Revolution innocence was possible

Maidens wore their hair in braids or in private, loose.

Pinafores over their dresses, parasol with satin ribbons.

They laced up their bodice tightly to have a waist

small enough that a man could circle with his hands and

 busts were lifted so teacups could be poised on them

 even forget at times that it was there…

We had picnics on the manicured lawns with rustic baskets

 full of wild flowers, embossed napkins in silver rings,

The servants were requisitioned to play along in powdered wigs

and reverse roles with us, as shepherdesses and swains.

It strained pretence that we were in the midst of a bucolic scene.

There was time for time.  For reverie or thought

but even in its core it had a quality of a different order.

It could be stretched to encompass grandiose or small tasks,

 To write short love missives or lengthy treatises.

Time for the tedium of interminable Sunday visits, rites.

The endless arguments about the existence of God

The merits of emancipating the serfs or not.

There was time for sitting around the samovar,

Warmed through the glass by setting sun.

And even time in the long Winter nights

In front of the fireplace to separate one by one,

quill from feather as proper girls were wont to do

to do filling their wedding quilts.

Only to discover eighty years later in the attic gloom

amidst clouds of feathers and wild laughter

that babushka had not been such a good girl after all,

Before the Revolution innocence was possible.

We sat around sipping tea with Great-Aunt Agafyevna

And begged her to retell her meeting Vladimir Illich

in Lake Como in the Summer before the Finland Station.

Only to hear her say that he had terrible table manners,

 and did not know how to properly crook his little finger

 around a dainty cup. She smirked at his class so openly

that she made us cringe with shame. Later though,

we laughed ourselves silly at her pretentiousness and

did not dare to voice our doubts about choices we had made.

Before the Revolution innocence was possible.

You sat with us for afternoon tea and blinis and with such ease

discoursed on disparities in Nietzsche’s and Kierkegaard’s thought

 and other such lofty matters.

That I, despite stating I prized intellect above manners

paused and asked myself if we were a good match after all?

I wondered how the cool civility between us could be bridged

since you gave the appearance of courting me to all…

Then came the chaos before the Terror that disrupted our lives.

There was a great movement of men and horses, fires and floods.

Displaced people fled in confusion in trains and ships.

The Reds were upon us, the Whites cavalry still some distance away.

No time now for tea, curtsies or click of heels or departing bows,

No time for the formality of manners or even ease.

I saw you stand with horse in hand endlessly polishing

your saddle and weeping for the loss of a way of life,

while waiting for orders to rejoin your regimen.

 I knew then that the Revolution that had taken everything away

had given me this, a possibility to break away from my mold.

I sought you out to breech our distance now,

felt you soften and harden by turns in my embrace.

And as we bared ourselves to each, Russia was laid asunder.

You and I turned our faces West but for our dreams.

      Antonia Baranov