The black walnut tree

My mother and I debate:
we could sell
the black walnut tree
to the lumberman,
and pay off the mortgage.
Likely some storm anyway
will churn down its dark boughs,
smashing the house. We talk
slowly, two women trying
in a difficult time to be wise.
Roots in the cellar drains,
I say, and she replies
that the leaves are getting heavier
every year, and the fruit
harder to gather away.
But something brighter than money
moves in our blood-an edge
sharp and quick as a trowel
that wants us to dig and sow.
So we talk, but we don't do
anything. That night I dream
of my fathers out of Bohemia
filling the blue fields
of fresh and generous Ohio
with leaves and vines and orchards.
What my mother and I both know
is that we'd crawl with shame
in the emptiness we'd made
in our own and our fathers' backyard.
So the black walnut tree
swings through another year
of sun and leaping winds,
of leaves and bounding fruit,
and, month after month, the whip-
crack of the mortgage.
____________________________

Mi madre y yo discutimos:
podríamos vender
el nogal negro
al leñador
y terminar de pagar la hipoteca.
Lo más probable es que alguna tormenta
desgaje sus ramas oscuras
y aplaste la casa. Hablamos
despacio, dos mujeres tratando
ser prudentes en un momento difícil.
Las raíces destruyen las cañerías del sótano,
digo y ella contesta
que cada año las hojas se hacen más pesadas
y cuesta más recoger el fruto.
Pero algo más brillante que el dinero
se mueve en nuestra sangre, un filo
águdo y rápido como una paleta de albañil
que quiere que cavemos y sembremos....
....

Mary Oliver. Traducción de Hilario Barrero
Pintura: Pissarro. Walnut tree.