Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology (40 page)

en there are other things:

the case of the atomic bomb,

to me, among ourselves, leaves me neither hot nor cold

—to the day it leaves me in eternity cold.

And that would be the last of my worries.

Th

at which worries me most is to be blinded or maimed

unable to see a day full of sunlight

nor hold a rose in my fi ngers

for the eyes have fallen into a pit of darkness

the fi ngers remain dried up like burlap.

I say, that if we are to see, it means almost nothing to me.

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But the inquisition of having to be seated

in those metal chairs or made of I don’t know what,

with glass mirrors where you may not sit

which are on the walls and the window,

but mirrors where plates and cups are set

and glassware on the tables instead of wood,

so that you have to keep looking at the skirts of the ladies,

that yes, is more an inquisition than the bomb.

When you left , all of this had hardly begun,

but now . . .

I tell you I yearn to go into an old curtained house

with rugs on the fl oors

(but real ones, not those made of wood-fi ber and synthetic silk)

and wide comfortable chairs

(so as not to be seated as if out of courtesy

on hollow metal stuck into our hams)

and lamps like those which thank God

I have at home

(and like those others

found in funeral parlors

or hotel lobbies, lamps, yes, which give light

but cast no shadow).

And the worst is that it pleases people to have it

this way, and there are those

who tear up a whole marble fi replace in their homes

to replace it with an idiotic artifact

embodying a thermostat and air control and

I don’t know what else,

but which, since there is no visible fl ame,

gives off heat without light

and since there is no light there are no shadows

shadows for the half closing of the eyes

to quit reading and turning the page,

to quit reading with half vision

E ug e n io F l or i t
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shadows to redirect the wavering eyes

and refocus them on the word

which awaits us at the end of the strophe.

(With all this, father,

you will say that I am growing old;

and you’ll be right.

At my years I prefer

to go home and hang up my overcoat and hat,

and to take a cup of tea with lemon in it

or chocolate beside the window.

Since thank God I am not cold,

I tranquilly allow the cat

to do whatever he pleases.

And if the question of a cat hot or cold

is beside the point,

the question for us, you and me, and whoever else

is to pass the time reading.)

Let us turn to other things,

in my opinion, you are well off up there.

Did you fi nally go to your own Castilian land

as I thought you would?

You must have enjoyed meeting

so many friends

and stopped to talk with them

on some Cuban threshing fl oor at midday.

(Th

ere will be those who will think this an error

for they do not know of the little town that you loved;

where, as soon as I can, will go his ashes.)

But to change the subject,

you would be amused

to see how your son

the poet has turned painter

—of course only to put down mere nonsense.

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Because, as you well know

—now I recall those little green mountains

and those blue skies that you painted in tempera

for the Nativity scenes you made for us at Port-Bou—

I say, as you know,

it is something very amusing

to daub a canvas with paint

without knowing whether it is going to be fl owers or a gorilla.

With me it is mostly monsters

but I hope some day . . .

And with this hope I leave you for the time being.

It is late. You know I never leave you;

that to stop talking is not to quit you,

I take myself off , but still listening,

I am with you when I leave you . . .

I mean . . . that I do not go, leaving;

but let me fi nish this letter

though I am seated beside you forever.

For when I stop talking to you, I continue to talk.

Well, I am making a botch of it, but you

understand.

William Carlos Williams, 2011

E ug e n io F l or i t
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Pa blo Neruda
(1904–73)

Ode to My Socks

Maru Mori brought me

a pair

of socks

that she knitted with her own hands

of a shepherdess,

two soft socks

you’d say they were rabbits.

In them

I stuck my feet

as in

two

jewel cases

woven

with threads of

twilight

and lamb skins.

Violent socks,

my feet were

two fi sh

made of wool,

two long sharks

of ultramarine blue

shot

with a tress of gold

two gigantic blackbirds,

two cannons:

my feet

were honored

in this manner

by

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these

celestial

socks.

Th

ey were

so beautiful

that for the fi rst time

my feet seemed to me

unacceptable

like two decrepit

fi remen, fi remen

unworthy

of that embroidered

fi re,

those luminous

socks.

Nevertheless

I resisted

the acute temptation

to keep them

as schoolboys

keep

fi refl ies,

or the erudite

collect

sacred documents,

I resisted

the furious impulse

to put them

in a cage

of gold

and to feed them

every day

bird seed

Pa bl o N e ru da
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and the pulp of rosey

melon.

Like discoverers

who in the forest

yield the very rare

green deer

to the spit

and with regret

eat it,

I stretched out

my feet

and pulled over them

the

beautiful

socks

and

then my shoes.

And this is

the moral of my ode:

twice beautiful

is beauty

and what is good is twice

good

when it is two socks

made of wool

in winter.

William Carlos Williams, 2011

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M iguel Her n á ndez
(1910–42)

So Bitter Was Th

at Lemon When You Th

rew It

So bitter was that lemon when you threw it—

with a hand as innocent as warm—

that it retained the rigor of its form

and the harsh, bitter taste by which I knew it.

My blood, roused by the yellow jolt that drew it,

rose to a fever from its former calm,

as if it had been nipped to quick alarm

when a long, rigid nipple bit into it.

But when I saw your smile—how I provided

amusement with your lemon to my chest,

and my dark thought so far from your perceiving—

inside my shirt the blood swift ly subsided,

and what had been that porous golden breast

became a sudden, sharp, bewildered grieving.

Rhina P. Espaillat, 2011

M igu e l H e r ná n de z
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Héc tor Inch aústegui C a br a l
(1912–79)

Gentle Song for the Donkeys of My Town

Donkey—Saint Joseph’s, and the coal-man’s too—

sad vehicle that links the poor bastard

and the arrogant rich,

you whose ambling trot carries, in early morning,

the fi eld hand’s sour sweat

transmuted to fragrant fruits,

dark yucca, bright green plantain,

our native pepper,

and the delicate complex leaf

of coriander, large and small.

If the pregnant girl is nearly due,

let her go by donkey;

if the old man can barely take another step

because the earth is calling him,

let him ride the donkey;

if the child is too small

to take the milk to town,

it’s all right, let him go by donkey. . . .

Mount of Saint Joseph and the small-town con man,

of the accordion player and the schoolteacher

whose hair has been gray these thirty years;

donkey that brings water,

carries precious medicine,

donkey whose infancy is sad and short,

and whose old age is long and sadder still. . . .

Young, you are all ingenuousness, soft eyes,

long shaggy pelt and gentleness

and wordless love

of the thin shade of acacia trees. . . .

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Later, long fallen ears

dead as two useless husks

over your noble, heavy cloud of brow.

Later, the bitterness of each long trek,

burdens—too heavy—

bruises—dense and red—

and sometimes, in late aft ernoon,

the small white hand of a child

stroking slowly

your aching lower lip

where the thorn

no longer fi nds a foothold

for its single cleat.

And later still, bare open fi eld,

thistles blooming yellow,

grass out of reach,

well-aimed stones,

pitched words,

sharp bone slowly piercing

your hairless hide,

a mass of prickly weeds

clinging to rump and feet and lower lip.

Donkey—Saint Joseph’s, and the coal-man’s too—

sad, slow vehicle that links

desperate country need

with the town’s pretense of city life,

donkey whose infancy is useless and happy

and whose old age, like ours,

comes to its close

at the wide gates

of the other world.

Rhina P. Espaillat, 2011

H é c t or I nc h aú s t e gu i C a br a l
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Oc tav io Pa z
(1914–98)

Tomb of the Poet

Th

e book

Th

e glass

Th

e green obscurely a stalk

Th

e record

Sleeping beauty in her bed of music

Th

ings drowned in their names

To say them with the eyes

In a beyond I cannot tell where

Nail them down

Lamp pencil portrait

Th

is that I see

To nail it down

Like a living temple

Plant it

Like a tree

A god

Crown it

With a name

Immortal

Derisible crown of thorns—

Speech!

Th

e stalk and its imminent fl ower

Sun-sex-sun

Th

e fl ower without shadow

In a beyond without where

Opens

Like the horizon

Opens

Immaculate extension

Transparency which sustains things

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Fallen

Raised

up

By the glance

Held

In a refl ection

Moons multiplied

Across the steppe

Bundle of worlds

Instants

Glowing bunches

Moving forests of stars

Wandering syllables

Millennia of sand endlessly falling away

Tide

All the times of time

TO

BE

A second’s fraction

Lamp pencil portrait

In a here I cannot tell where

A name

Begins

Seize on it, plant it, say it

Like a wood that thinks

Flesh it

A lineage begins

In a name

An adam

Like a living temple

Name without shadow

Nailed

Like a god

In this here-without-where—

Speech!

I cease in its beginning

O c tav io Pa z
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