Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish Edition) (21 page)

1

I never looked for glory,

or to leave my song

as a human memory.

I love the subtle worlds,

elegant and delicate

like soap bubbles.

I like to see them painted

in sun and scarlet grain,

soar below the blue sky,

quiver suddenly and break.

2

Why call roads

the furrows of chance?

All who walk stroll

like Jesus on the sea.

4

Our hours are minutes

when we hope to know,

and centuries when we know

what can be learned.

5

A fruit is nothing

picked out of season.

Even a brute’s praise

won’t stand to reason.

6

Out of what people call

virtue, justice and goodness to all,

one half of it is envy

and the other isn’t charity.

10

Envy of virtue

made Cain a criminal galore.

Glory to Cain! Today, vice

is envied more.

11

The hand of the pious man always steals our honor

yet he never slights when lending us his fist as brawler.

Virtue is a fortress; being good is brave and blunt;

a shield, sword, and club you carry to the front

since honorable courage, dressed in all its arms,

not only parries and wounds, but stiffens to charge.

Let the pickaxe tear apart and the bullwhip scourge,

let the rasp grind, smoothing iron softened in the forge,

let the burin gouge out holes and the chisel gash,

let the sword pierce and split, and the great hammer smash.

12

Eyes that open to light

stop on a later day, and

blind, turn to the earth,

sick of looking without sight.

15

Let us sing together. Knowing? Nothing we know.

From hidden sea we came, to unknown sea we go.

A grave puzzle stands between the double mystery

and three chests are locked by an unknown key.

Light illumines nothing and the sage teaches nothing

under his frock.

What has the word to say? Or water in the rocks?

21

Last night I dreamed I saw

God, and was talking to God,

and dreamed that God heard me.

Then I dreamed I was dreaming.

22

Things of men and women:

ancient love affairs

for me almost forgotten,

if they ever were.

23

Don’t be surprised, good friends,

if on my forehead you find ruts.

I live in peace with people

and am at war with my guts.

24

Out of ten heads, nine attack

and one thinks without fear.

Don’t be surprised when a thug

insanely pushes an idea.

28

Everyone has two

battles to wage ceaselessly:

in dreams wrestling with God,

and awake with the sea.

29

Walker, your footsteps

are the road, and nothing more.

Walker, there is no road,

the road is made by walking.

Walking you make the road,

and turning to look behind

you see the path you never

again will step upon.

Walker, there is no road,

only foam trails on the sea.

31

Heart, once resonant,

does your small gold coin

no longer jingle and clink?

Before time cracks

your piggy bank,

will it remain empty?

Let us be confident:

there will be no truth

in anything we think.

32

O faith of the meditator!

O faith after the thought!

Only when a heart comes to the world

can your human glass brim and the sea get fat

35

There are two modes of consciousness:

one is light, and the other patience.

One is based on flashing a tiny

beam over the deep sea.

The other is being penitent

with a pole or line, waiting for a bite

like a fisherman. Tell me,

which is better:

the consciousness of a seer

who in a deep aquarium

sees a few live fish squirm

and flee

—you can’t catch them—

or that cursed chore

of tossing dead fishes of the sea

up on a sandy shore?

36

Empirical faith. We’re not nor will be.

All our life is on loan. We brought nothing.

With nothing we leave.

37

You say nothing is created?

Don’t worry. With clay

of the earth make a cup

so your brother can drink.

41

It’s good to know a glass

works well for drinking.

What’s bad is we don’t know

what good is thirst.

42

You say nothing is lost?

If this drinking glass

breaks on me, I’ll never,

never drink in her.

43

You say nothing is lost.

Maybe you say the truth,

but we lose everything

and everything loses us.

44

All passes and all remains,

and ours is to pass by,

to pass by making roads,

roads over the sea.

45

To die. To fall like a drop

of sea into the immense sea?

Or to be what I’ve never been:

one without shadow and dream,

a solitary who is moving on

without a road and mirror?

46

Last night I dreamt I heard

God shouting at me: Take

care! Later, God was sleeping

and I shouted: Awake!

47

A man has four things

that don’t work on the sea:

anchor, rudder and oars,

and fear of drowning.

48

Looking at my skull,

“A new Hamlet?” you ask.

Here’s a charming fossil

of a carnival mask.

49

On my way to growing old,

note that I placed the quicksilver

in the gigantic mirror

where one day I gazed proud.

In the mirror deep in my house

a fatal hand

scratches the silver. All things pass

through it like light through glass.

50

Our Spaniard yawns.

Is it hunger? Dream? Boredom?

Doctor, is his stomach empty?

No, in the head lies the vacuum.

51

Soul light, holy light,

beacon, torch, sun, star.

A man stumbles on a road,

a lantern on his shoulder.

54

Now there is a Spaniard

who wants and starts to live

between a dying Spain

and one that is yawning.

Young Spaniard coming

into the world, God keep you.

One of these Spains

will freeze your heart.

1

Era un niño que soñaba

un caballo de cartón.

Abrió los ojos el niño

y el caballito no vio.

Con un caballito blanco

el niño volvió a soñar;

y por la crin lo cogía...

¡Ahora no te escaparás!

Apenas lo hubo cogido,

el niño se despertó.

Tenía el puño cerrado.

¡El caballito voló!

Quedóse el niño muy serio

pensando que no es verdad

un caballito soñado.

Y ya no volvió a soñar.

Pero el niño se hizo mozo

y el mozo tuvo un amor,

y a su amada le decía:

¿Tú eres de verdad o no?

Cuando el mozo se hizo viejo

pensaba: Todo es soñar,

el caballito soñado

y el caballo de verdad.

Y cuando vino la muerte,

el viejo a su corazón

preguntaba: ¿Tú eres sueño?

Quién sabe si despertó!

2

Sobre la limpia arena, en el tartesio llano

por donde acaba España y sigue el mar,

hay dos hombres que apoyan la cabeza en la mano;

uno duerme, y el otro parece meditar.

El uno, en la mañana de tibia primavera,

junto a la mar tranquila,

ha puesto entre sus ojos y el mar que reverbera,

los párpados, que borran el mar en la pupila.

Y se ha dormido, y sueña con el pastor Proteo,

que sabe los rebaños del marino guardar;

y sueña que le llaman las hijas de Nereo,

y ha oído a los caballos de Poséidon hablar.

El otro mira al agua. Su pensamiento flota:

hijo del mar, navega—o se pone a volar—.

Su pensamiento tiene un vuelo de gaviota,

que ha visto un pez de plata en el agua saltar.

Y piensa: “Es esta vida una ilusión marina

de un pescador que un día ya no puede pescar.”

El soñador ha visto que el mar se le ilumina,

y sueña que es la muerte una ilusión del mar.

3

Érase de un marinero

que hizo un jardín junto al mar,

y se metió a jardinero.

Estaba el jardín en flor,

y el jardinero se fue

por esos mares de Dios.

4
CONSEJOS

Sabe esperar, aguarda que la marea fluya

—así en la costa un barco—sin que al partir te inquiete.

Todo el que aguarda sabe que la victoria es suya;

porque la vida es larga y el arte es un juguete.

Y si la vida es corta

y no llega la mar a tu galera,

aguarda sin partir y siempre espera,

que el arte es largo y, además, no importa.

5
PROFESIÓN DE FE

Dios no es el mar, está en el mar, riela

como luna en el agua, o aparece

como una blanca vela;

en el mar se despierta o se adormece.

Creó la mar, y nace

de la mar cual la nube y la tormenta;

es el Criador y la criatura lo hace;

su aliento es alma, y por el alma alienta.

Yo he de hacerte, mi Dios, cual tú me hiciste,

y para darte el alma que me diste

en mí te he de crear. Que el puro río

de caridad que fluye eternamente,

fluya en mi corazón. ¡Seca, Dios mío,

de una fe sin amor la turbia fuente!

6

El Dios que todos llevamos,

el Dios que todos hacemos,

el Dios que todos buscamos

y que nunca encontraremos.

Tres dioses o tres personas

del solo Dios verdadero.

7

Dice la razón: Busquemos

la verdad.

Y el corazón: Vanidad.

La verdad ya la tenemos.

La razón: ¡Ay, quién alcanza

la verdad!

El corazón: Vanidad.

La verdad es la esperanza.

Dice la razón: Tú mientes.

Y contesté el corazón:

Quien miente eres tú, razón,

que dices lo que no sientes.

La razón: Jamás podremos

entendernos, corazón.

El corazón: Lo veremos.

8

Cabeza meditadora,

¡qué lejos se oye el zumbido

de la abeja libadora!

Echaste un velo de sombra

sobre el bello mundo y vas

creyendo ver, porque mides

la sombra con un compás.

Mientras la abeja fabrica,

melifica,

con jugo de campo y sol,

yo voy echando verdades

que nada son, vanidades

al fondo de mi crisol.

De la mar al percepto,

del percepto al concepto,

del concepto a la idea

—¡oh, la linda tarea!—,

de la idea a la mar.

¡Y otra vez a empezar!

1

There was a child who dreamed

of a cardboard horse.

The boy opened his eyes

and couldn’t see the little horse.

The child had another dream

of a little white horse

and grabbed it by the mane.

“Now you won’t get away!”

Hardly had he caught it

when the boy woke up.

His fist was clenched,

the little horse had flown off.

The boy turned very grave,

thinking a dream pony

cannot be true,

and he never dreamt again.

But the boy became a young man

and the youth fell in love

and asked his lover:

“Are you real or not?”

When the boy grew old

he thought: “All is dream,

the little dream pony

and the real horse.”

And when death came,

the old man spoke to his heart,

asking: “Are you a dream?”

Who knows if he woke up!

2

On the Tartessos
³⁵
plain and its clean sand,

where Spain concludes and seas perpetuate,

there are two men holding their head in hand,

one of them sleeps, the other seems to meditate.

The first, on a morning of tepid spring

beside the tranquil sea,

sets his eyelids between his eyes and the humming

waves to erase the sea in his pupils.

He falls asleep and dreams of Proteus the pastor

artful in looking after marine flocks;

he dreams of being called by Nereid’s daughters

and he has heard the horses of Poseidon talk.

The second looks at water. His thoughts float.

Son of the sea, he sails them, lets them soar,

and there is a plunging sea gull in his thought,

witnessing a silver fish leap before

him. He wonders, “This life is a maritime illusion

of a fisherman who can’t fish any more.”

The dreamer, seeing the sea illumine him,

dreams that death is an illusion of the sea.

3

Once there was a sailor

who made a garden by the sea,

and became a gardener.

The garden bloomed

and the gardener left

for those seas of God.

4
ADVICE

Learn to wait. Wait for the tide to flow,

as a boat on the coast. And don’t worry when it buoys

you out. If you wait, you will know victory,

for life is long and art a toy.

And if life is short

and the sea doesn’t reach your galleon, stay

forever waiting in the port,

for art is long, and never matters anyway.

5
PROFESSION OF FAITH

God is not the sea. He is on the sea. He glows pale

like moon on water or seems

like a white sail.

In the sea he wakes or falls asleep.

He created the sea and is born

from the sea like the cloud and the storm.

He is Creator and his creatures make him.

His breath is soul and through the soul he breathes.

I must make you, my God, as you made me,

and to give you the soul you gave me,

I will create you in me. Let the pure river

of kindness that flows eternally

flow in my heart. My God, dry

the muddy fountain of my loveless faith.

6

The God we all cart around,

the God we all make,

the God we all look for

and will never find.

Three gods or three persons

of the only true God.

7

Reason says. Let’s see

if we find truth.

And the heart: Vanity.

We have truth already.

Reason: Oh, who can reach

the truth!

The heart: Vanity.

Truth is hope.

Reason says: You lie.

And the heart replies: Nope,

the liar is you, reason,

for saying what is beyond your feeling.

Reason: We don’t get it, heart. We...

The heart: We will see.

8

Brooding head, how remote

the bumble

and grumble of the sipping bee!

You’ve drawn a veil of shade

over the beautiful world, and go

guessing you see, since you parade

a compass to measure shadow.

While the bee has its industry

of honey,

with the juice of sun and field,

I keep slipping out verities,

pure nothing: pure vanities

from the bottom of my crucible.

From the sea to percept,

from percept to concept,

from conception to notion.

What a cozy commotion!

from notion to the sea.

And we begin again!

³⁵
Tartessos or Tartessus was a Phoenician settlement in southern Spain, and an eponym of the entire country of Spain. It may be the same as biblical Tarshish, which is identified as several places, including Spain.