Photo of Marlene Pasini in an illustration by Global Voices. Photo used with permission.
To talk about Marlene Pasini is to talk about a Mexican woman and all that that implies: colour, beauty, sensitivity, intensity, and culture.
In fact, I imagine Marlene Pasini’s feet to be like a beautiful map where all stories and all paths are drawn. She has eyes that reveal one of those souls who has seen everything without ever losing the capacity for wonder.
Renaissance woman par excellence, Pasini has developed diverse interests to which she has dedicated her passion and intelligence. She is a communicologist, a writer, a poet, an editor, a visual artist, and a psychotherapist and coach in Transpersonal Education. If that wasn’t enough, she has continued her studies, obtaining a Master’s degree in Literature and a diploma in Renaissance History, Egyptology, and hieroglyphics. She is the author of eighteen books: poetry, novels, essays, articles, and books on personal and spiritual development.
The publication of her most recent book called “Memorias de Aquí” (Memories of Here) is, as the author mentions, part of a series of poetry books that she has produced on the theme of her life and experience as a traveller, poet and artist. This text is a testimony to her commitment to the mystical and spiritual experience, in which she includes clear references to each of the places she has visited — places that have visited her at the same time. This relationship has left indelible marks on her memory, which she shares with us, in the most sublime way: through poetry.
It is interesting how, at a certain point in life, it becomes necessary to leave a testimony of the path undertaken, and this reminiscence of experiences began with “Memorias Nómadas del Medio Oriente al Norte de África” (Nomadic Memoirs from the Middle East to North Africa). This is the first publication in this series, which was published in 2021 — in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic — and which was the result of the author’s travels to the Holy Land, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt, with poems written over several years that were illustrated by some of the poet’s own paintings. Later, in the year 2023, “Memorias de Andalucía” (Memories of Andalusia) was produced, and through brief, Japanese-style texts like haikus and tankas, the author immerses the reader in the experience of visiting Spain.
“Memorias de aquí” was published in August 2024. Its structure contains four autobiographical sections, but with clear reasons for their division.
The first part is titled: De las memorias del alma (From the memories of the soul), and is made up of poems that allude to Pasini’s memories, as well as her personal experiences, which give an account of an inner voice that reflects on life and the passing of time. In them, one can appreciate nostalgia, longing, dreams, the personal connection with nature and its presence in the journey that is life.
The word I would use to define this part of the work is melancholy, and as an example:
LLUVIA
Nada es silencio…
Aquí en esta ciudad
llega el verano
y una música de lluvia
empapa sus calles de asfalto
En el instante y su tiempo fugitivo
en la incertidumbre del más allá
donde la vida aletea
como negra mariposa
en el hueco del insomnio
donde los recuerdos se ovillan
en sombra enmudecida
desciendo despacio
en un largo sueño.
RAIN
Nothing is silent…
Here in this city
summer arrives
and a musical rain
soaks its asphalt streets
In the moment and it’s fleeting time
in the uncertainty of the beyond
where life flutters
like a black butterfly
in the hollow of insomnia
where memories coil
in muted shadow
I descend slowly
into a lengthy dream.
It is from the journey through melancholy that we reach Caminos citadinos y Pueblos Mágicos de México (City Roads and Magical Towns of Mexico). In this chapter, the poet shares some of the cities and towns that she has visited throughout her life and that are somehow significant, not for their touristic qualities, but for their historic and ancestral nature, as a part of Pasini’s “Mexicanness,” and for the strategic connection with her soul.
FLAMBOYANES
Rojo estallido
el follaje de los flamboyanes
una tarde de mayo
Una brizna suave del viento
corta erizadas alas
de pájaros en vuelo
Incandescente sol
como una ofrenda
su luz contra pieles color moreno
Cuernavaca
ciudad de la eterna primavera
hondura de suspiros en sus haciendas
tardes de nostalgia
y el eco de los siglos.
FLAME TREES
Red burstthe foliage of the flame trees
an afternoon in May
A soft breeze of wind
cuts the ruffled wings
of birds in flight
Incandescent sun
like an offering
its light against dark skin
Cuernavaca
city of eternal spring
depth of sighs in its haciendas
afternoons of nostalgia
and the echo of the centuries.
Atavismos, is the word that gives its name to the third section, which represents a symbolism that resonates with the idea of Ancestry. It runs between mysticism and a reunion with the ancestral Mexican past.
MUJER INDÍGENA EN TEPOZTLÁN
Borda sueños de magia
con sus manos
en múltiples colores hila
toda una vida sobre su nívea tela
Con una sonrisa apenas perfilada en su boca
finge que no hay sufrimiento
ante este pueblo rodeado
por el gran cerro del Tepozteco
Su rostro moreno — arrugado
y trenzas de color azabache
están cenizos por las polvaredas
que dejan los caminos
tierra suelta
olvido
hambre
Envuelta en rebozo gris y coloridas enaguas
ha quedado en sus manos
olores de hierba y hongos
lo amarillo de la flor
recogidos al alba.
INDIGENOUS WOMAN IN TEPOZTLÁN
She embroiders dreams of magic
with her hands
in multi-colours she weaves
a whole life on her snowy fabric
with the trace of a smile on her mouth
she pretends there is no suffering
before this town surrounded
by the great Tepozteco mountain
Her dark face – wrinkled
and braids jet-black
are ashy from the dust-clouds
left by the roads
loose earth
forgetfulness
hunger
Wrapped in a grey shawl and colourful petticoats
on her hands remains
the smell of grass and mushrooms
the yellow of the flower
collected at dawn.
The last section of this work belongs to Sombras luminosas (Luminous shadows); poetic allusions to people, beings and characters that are not found in the physical world, but whose presence is still a reality through time.
Here is a small fragment of the poem ¿Qué lazos nos unen y desunen? (What ties unite and separate us?):
A mi padre
In memoriam
Materia en sustancia de luz eterna
Memoria
silencio
casa habitada en sueños
con una oración
levantada al cielo de la Gloria
formas diluyéndose en viento.
To my father
In memoriam
Matter in substance of eternal light
Memory
silence
house inhabited in dreams
with a prayer
raised to the heaven of Glory
forms dissolving into wind.
My recommendation is, of course, to enjoy the leap of faith that it takes to go along with the words of a writer who has decided to revel in this poetic work that clearly shows the ability to understand that geography and time are conventions, and that beauty lives in the untouchable space of every human being: the spirit and that intangible essence.
This post was originally published on this site
