of a place bounded like a dream
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Both my mother and my grandmother were snobs. I was raised
to be one and I will not deny it.
Often my mother would say, “Hay poca gente fina como
nosotros.” This translates to something like, “There are few people who are
elegant and well-mannered as we are.”
Because my grandmother worked for the Filipino Legation in
Buenos Aires and then at the Embassy in Mexico City, both my mother and my grandmother,
went to many parties. Some involved events in which Diego Rivera, Alma Reed and
well known Mexican actors were attendees.
This meant that I would watch them choose dresses and the
proper jewellery to wear. A little dab of Chanel Number 5 and off they were.
Even I, about 13 years old, knew elegance when I saw it.
Lisa Montonen, who rarely uttered words was elegance at a
Platonic Essence.
I have chosen Jorge Luís Borges's poem A un gato (To a cat)
because his words describe something about cats that I marvel at always. Just
seeing Casi-Casi, Rosemary’s cat, sprawled on our bed, his paws in elegance that
only a ballet dancer could mimic for me is like Lisa Montonen, a definition of
elegance and grace.
No son
más silenciosos los espejos
ni más
furtiva el alba aventurera;
eres,
bajo la luna, esa pantera
que nos
es dado divisar de lejos.
Por obra
indescifrable de un decreto
divino,
te buscamos vanamente;
más
remoto que el Ganges y el poniente,
tuya es
la soledad, tuyo el secreto.
Tu lomo
condesciende a la morosa
caricia
de mi mano. Has admitido,
desde
esa eternidad que ya es olvido,
el amor
de la mano recelosa.
En otro
tiempo estás. Eres el dueño
de un
ámbito cerrado como un sueño.
Mirrors are not
more silent
nor the
creeping dawn more secretive;
in the
moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight
of from afar.
By the
inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you
in vain;
More remote,
even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the
solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch
allows the lingering
caress of my
hand. You have accepted,
since that long
forgotten past,
the love of the
distrustful hand.
You belong to
another time. You are lord
of a place
bounded like a dream.
