Thursday, November 29, 2012

Eidolons


The cold rain courses gently over my raincoat
And seeps into my soul.  It is a harsh
Reminder that I no longer possess
The impermeability of youth.

Beatrice is gone.

Heartbreak – that’s what they called it.
And I know they were right, because
A piece of my soul was suddenly ripped out,
Leaving an irreparable void.

Sometimes the pain eases to a dull throb –
How I long for those brief, fleeting moments!
But then it comes back twice as strong.
Forgotten those precious lethean minutes
As the love-specter comes.
I reach out to her, but she melts
Into a mist of tears.
Once again, I’ve been tricked by a wisp of a memory,
Spending my days chasing eidolons.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Lovers: A New Translation of Octavio Paz' "Los Novios"


I first discovered Octavio Paz’s poem “Los Novios” through the music of Eric Whitacre,[1] where it was translated as "A Boy and a Girl."  It quickly became one of my favorite poems, as well as one of my favorite choral works.  I looked up the original text, and while Muriel Rukeyser’s translation is beautiful, I was not quite satisfied that it captured the simplicity of original text.  In particular, the parallelism between the first and the second stanzas seemed to be masked.  I did this more literal translation for fun and (honestly) as a break from studying.

As a side note, the title Los Novios, is very difficult to translate into English without losing something.  The word “novio” means a boyfriend or a romantic partner and comes from the Latin novus, or new.  The feminine form “novia” means the same thing, and in Spanish, if there are multiples in a group consisting of females and males, the plural word takes the masculine plural.  While “los novios” could be translated as “the boyfriends,” context here is clear that it is the sum of a boyfriend and a girlfriend and not some sort of homoerotic message.  Because “The Boyfriend and the Girlfriend” is an awkward title, I took the liberty of translating the title as “The Lovers,” which seems to me to capture the essence of what Paz was trying to convey.

Original poem copyrighted by Octavio Paz.



Tendidos en la yerba 
una muchacha y un muchacho.
Comen[2] naranjas, cambian besos                                  como las olas cambian sus espumas.                                    

Tendido en la playa
una muchacha y un muchacho.
Comen limones, cambian beso
como las nubes cambian espumas.                                    

Tendidos bajo tierra
una muchacha y un muchacho.
No dicen nada, no se besan,
cambian silencio por silencio.         

    

Lying in the grass
a girl and a boy.
Eating oranges, exchanging kisses
like the waves exchanging their foam.

Lying on the beach
a girl and a boy.
Eating limes, exchanging kisses
like the clouds exchanging foam.

Lying underground
a girl and a boy.
Saying nothing, nor kissing
exchanging silence for silence.



[2] To eat; double entendre for sexual relations in Mexico (Paz is Mexican).  Although I found it impossible to translate this meaning (and it should in all likelihood be left vague anyways for poetic value), I felt that this note was important for interpretation of a nuance that may have gotten lost in translation.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Jazz

I went to see a jazz concert.
Jazz is rapturous, exciting –
Not like classical music,
Beautiful, sterile, unapproachable.
But jazz is alive!
Life clings to the music
Like coal dust on a miner,
Or the lingering smell of pipe tobacco.
Jazz brings out the reckless joy of lovers
Or their darkest sorrows;
Brings out the mirth, the pain,
The muchness of being, of labor, or life.
The sounds twist and bend
Through the air like incense,
Or rather like the perfume of a beautiful woman.
The notes have a certain shape
As they slide and then dissipate –
It’s obvious now why people call it “blue”.
Jazz brings tears and laughter
And a reminder that the human experience is shared.
There is nothing new under the sun.

Gingko Leaves


Fans to welcome Spring
Now prostrate in golden death.
Gingko leaves falling.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Bargain

The path of those dedicated to justice
Is long and hard, and leads to many strange places
And deep sacrifices
I remember so well
That day of oath-swearing,
That day of fealty.

Dreamlike, I flew
Into the realm of my lord,
Past hills full of herders leading their cattle
And saw bubbling pits spewing forth alphabets
Into channels of liquid letters, running into the great
Word-forges.  There satyrs hasten busily to keep
The speech vats from overflowing.
Here a pot of “but’s” and “if’s” seethes and nearly
Spills onto the floor. 
Meanwhile, another satyr spun molten letters
Into beautiful words – custom ordered for the best poets!

But my feet hastened onwards despite my lingering gaze,
And I entered the great palace – elysian home
For all departed poets, lawyers, philologists, and misers.
Flitting about ceaselessly in argument, debate, and conversation.
I caught only snatches of their talk
And was suddenly propelled into the presence of Mercury himself.
It all happened so quickly!
The bargain struck, the staff kissed,
And I was on my way home.

How then can I be at a loss for words?
False trickster!  He betrayed me -
I sold him my soul in consideration
Where then is the performance?
Or perhaps I am the betrayer,
Having so long acted the part of slave
To rival Venus.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Lovesick

What is happening to me?
So happy, so sad,
So high, so low,
Trembling, sighing, pacing –
I’ve become utterly useless.

What is happening to me?
A strange urge to carve that sweet name
Into every tree I meet –
There are not enough trees in Arden!

What is happening to me?
Pulling, twisting,
Like some internal rack,
Torturing my sleepless nights.

What is happening to me?
I have seen Beatrice.
I have seen Beatrice,
And she doesn’t even know it.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Untitled (November 7, 2012)


Twilight falls.  And Autumn falls.
Winter’s grasping fingers
Stretch back from tomorrow
To scrape the air of today.
A cold breeze softly shudders through dying leaves,
And though I’m safe inside –
No cold wind can touch me here!
I still feel the chill shudder through my heart.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Septimana


My weak, creaking voice can only sing:
“Je ne dois pas plus voir ce que j'aime,
Je ne veux plus souffrir le jour.”
As tears flow endlessly down my face.

This was my picture – Foolish romantic!
But the truth is different,
And far more surprising.

Surprised to find sorrow,
Seelenschmerz so deep
That I could never have imagined it
Darkness, weeping, dread – no!
It is unwise to dwell on the horrors of the past,
But it is enough to say
I have seen immense depths,
And now truly understand things
I thought I understood before.

Surprised to find joy.
I have done what I thought unthinkable.
Where I thought music would be gone,
I have sung.
Where I thought pleasure would be gone,
I have laughed and enjoyed life.
Where I thought my faith would depart,
I have felt the hand
Of the Almighty upholding me,
And heard His sweet voice
Whispering comfort to my heart.

Surprised to find change,
Everything is tinged with a sort of dull gray throb.
My deceiver-heart traps me so easily into overconfidence –
“I’m just fine.” –
Merely to undo me
At the sight of a sunset, a pumpkin, a cat.
Or the sound of a sad song.
That deceiver then makes me forget the reason,
And wish only to weep in her arms to comfort my sorrow.
But that can never again be.

Never!
Never is such a harsh word,
Filled with finality and tragedy.
But a word I must slowly learn to accept,
Since never again will I bask in her love,
See her eyes shining at me, feel her hand in mine,
Hear her voice gently whispering words of affection.
Never, never, never, never.
I keep saying the words, but they don’t get easier,
They don’t get more understandable.

Surprised by sameness,
That everything goes on as before.
Don’t they know that the world has ended?
But it hasn’t ended, and I still like things I liked before:
Clouds, cold-crisp winds,
Music, talking with friends, reading.
I had thought these delights would fail me,
And pleasure would be gone,
But life keeps going on.

I am full of questions and few answers.
Will I be damaged forever?
Will I be able to love again, or will I be forever destined
To harm and distrust?
How can Fall still enchant my heart?

Time reveals much, and some things I will perhaps never know,
But I have known love,
And it is enough.
And I have learned that sadness and happiness can be wrapped together,
Like ice and fire united, neither burning nor extinguishing the other.

And I have learned that while love may fade, Love never will.