I Passed By Here So Many Times, and Never Saw You Before Poem by Yolanda Castaño

We are making a detailed inventory,
like the herbarium of an unforeseeable constellation.
First are the lilies, adornment of splattered stars;
the dahlias and the chrysanthemums;
the poppies need to be included because those tiny, shy flowers also deserve it.
The fig tree's flower is subliminal.
The most bookish of all: the capitula of the infloresences.
The orchid is clearly a lascivious flower,
it too closely resembles-I shan't go there.
The hibiscus fills the afternoon with whims and proverbs.
Hydrangeas: tell me how happy I was here.
There are the iris, the lavender, what is called the tea rose.
And then there is the magnolia that, as its name indicates,
must once have been the emblem of some kind of Mongol sovereignty.
Callas, anemones, the rhododendron's hardened indication.
Then there are other prodigies findable in distant latitudes,
like the unspeakable chilamate flower,
that is felt but not seen, like
that deep love that rises like a bellow from the knees.
There are
water lilies, Chinese roses, dandelions.
We also have cosmos and sage and impatiens but those are already
more conceptual flowers.
The passion-flower is like the throne of an answer, the
canopy of a consideration.
There are flowers that forever bear the name of the first eye that saw them.
Lilacs, marigolds, carnations.
I cannot forget the mimosas, swarm of tiny warnings,
nor my most spoiled: the indecent scent of the bougainvilleas.

But, I already told you-I don't know, it's strange,
I've passed by here so many times and
no,
I never saw you
before.

Translation by Lawrence Schimel