Cuerpo Sabio

Poet Marta Lucía Vargas recovers a body of wisdom

Gospel of Mary, 120–180 AD, discovered in 1896. Source: P. Oxyrhynchus L 3525, Papyrology Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

POET’S NOTE

These poems are part of a larger project entitled Cuerpo Sabio and inspired by the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and its ten missing pages. “Asleep in Capilla El Dorado” originally appeared in Aster(ix) Journal, 10 November 2015.

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Does a Person Who Sees a Vision See It with the Soul or with the Spirit? 

A person doesn’t see with the soul or with the spirit. The mind exists
between the two sees the vision and makes the bridge eternal.
A person can lean into the heart lay down alongside it
& ask, what makes you sing? & this is very temporary what is your song?
Remember where the mind is is treasure.

“La Oración al Proscrito [The Prayer to the Outlaw]” bronze sculpture by Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, Aeropuerto Internacional El Dorado, Bogotá, Colombia, 2014. Source: “Esculturas de Colombia,” BerSua

Asleep in Capilla El Dorado

Resin pellets spark
clouds inside the airport chapel
& a priest marks time
swinging the copal boat’s chain.
Inside me, a baby.
We’ve fallen into a void so I count.
Coin droppings in the rusted box & jet
roars gauge how long. A yellow-black & red-
toothed woman hobbles
up & down pews selling grilled
cobs & smiles. I hide from the shrine’s
balcony where the closed-eyed faithful
pray in delirium.
The aromatic fog doesn’t insulate
shapes pushing through chapel doors
& we’re found.

Miryam’s Vision

Before you left to be killed, you said, Remember to return to our roots. Language matters, it rots and returns and matters. Here, the river is named after you. Papyrus sedges gave their pith for the surreptitious spiral of words. Remember. I laughed. Your unopened letters remain bound in corn husks in my mother’s closet all these years. I’m bereft, but my small deaths feel easier than your dying. What they did, water and blood sluiced from your skin. Here with you, now, I’m not afraid. I want to balm your lips and heart, arms gangrened to the bone. No matter. I become water, flow and gorge on muted silt. Weave a bridge between memory and what we distilled. Find me, always.

Río Magdalena, San Augustín, Colombia, 2014. Photo: Alexander Schimmeck

A Woman on the Banks of the Magdalena River 

walks in the storm. Today’s not a blood rain, it simply rains. Egrets, cormorants scan murky  waters. Currents unfettered, the river takes back the land. Here, penetration makes the town, turns  every subtlety to shadow. If oil is blood, the drill kills the mother. She has our similar fate, Where  can I deposit my shadow, she asks. With no two rivers alike, her bodies change as do her names: Yuma, Magdalena, River of Tombs. Caught in my throat is her backbone. 

Where are You Coming from, Human Killer
and Where are you Going, Space-Conquerer? 

So darkness
said I see you. Come we are bound. 
And I said how do you really see me? 

How did you regulate breath 
machete in hand? 

Combat boots against the pavement.  
Black lab and Irish wolfhound run amuck.  
Spoke up to the almighty.  
Made a fear in my girl’s eyes—a glitch, a hiccup,  
I got scared, too.  
Ushered the basement vole to the forest.  
A lot of driving.  

You’re complicit you and your might. 

Holyholyholyholyholyholyholyholyholy 
inhale
Holyholyholyholyholyholyholyholyholy 
shit
Holyholyholyholyholyholyholyholyholy
out 

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