Nova tradução minha de um poema de Denise Duhamel.

 

Fresco

 This one was just published online!

https://www.poetrydistillery.com/poems/2023/3/19/fresco

she called out              for father
but it was        mother who came.

the walls of the city     had been

painted blood red.

scenes of destruction              were everywhere,
and families,          even armies, indulging

their last supper,         a field strewn

 with wine goblets, plates broken,  

 bones              of boar and quail.

  (this was before they invented perspective)

 

lastly a vision:

a dark coiling              corridor

and a single atrium,

splattered in

light.

new one... evoluindo ainda

 (Acordei hoje e escrevi este poema, que na verdade é mais como um fragmento de um poema longo em que venho trabalhando - em inglês, embora por vezes há coisas que nascem em português!)

O dia amanheceu querendo nos agradar.

Uma mulher entoava uma música.  Começou a chuva fina.

Ressoavam as palavras do poeta,  alguém que eu já conhecia

lembrando-me de cada gesto da manhã :     a criança que

aparece na sacada perguntando por que seu cachorro não

voltou, o início da jornada do vendedor de bilhetes

de loteria, a moça chegando para abrir a lanchonete.    

             As   boias   ou a âncora.      

As músicas eram bonitas     e nem do tudo

tristes.     Começava a chover mais forte e descendia das

montanhas uma névoa fria        envolvendo os corpos dos

          pés à cabeça    e minhas mãos também encetavam

uma metamorfose em veias azuis.

Uma mulher   - outra -    que usava um lenço escarlate

nos cabelos asselvajados   chegou para dizer que não havia tanto motivo

de preocupação         que a letra logo  

seria           a            nossa

        ****

[version]

 

The hastening day was trying to please us.

A woman began to wail out a tune.   

There were fine threads of drizzle falling and

the words that rang out were those of old man,

a fine master poet     calling me to cradle

each gesture of the early morning:  the child who

came out on the balcony, asking why his dog had not

returned from the night out, the lady selling lottery tickets

on the streetcorner, a girl lifting the heavy awning of a diner.

                Buoys or anchors.

The songs were lovely and in fact

                                not so sad.

It was beginning to rain and coming down  from the mountains

was a heavy fog    clinging to our bodies from head to toe

and my hands too began to show their purply veins.

A woman appeared    -  another -  wearing a scarlet headscarf

over her wilding tresses.  She looked me straight in the eye

as if to say    there was not such great reason for worry.

The lyrics would soon be our own.

There you are, fraying. There you are, living.

 

                                                      For Bruno, in memoriam.

 

                                     Who are we when we are not with each other?

                                             Who are we when we are not alone?

 

                                                                        Bhanu Kapil

 

1.

Perhaps I was never good at tending the plants.   I would skip a day, mess up the schedule, let our almost-bonsai grow large and wild and impossible to uproot.  But you were a friend to the green will to thrive.  Rubbery fronds sucking droplets of water into their cells,  shoots like nascent tongues suckling greedily for  nutrients. No matter the chaos.

2.

In Bruges there was a time to go back to.  I sat alone on a bench and pressed my eyelids together as tightly as I could, wanting only to hear the pattern of hooves clacking over cobblestone.  Groping for the past is a merciless task.   Our children smirk at our repeated stories and surge impatiently forward.  Mementos sit on our solitary laps.

3.

Sometimes paths cross, as if silvery birds, wings touching as they swoop in sudden synch. There are fish in the pond and an abrupt burst of sunlight, it takes your breath away. Other times paths are woven together, albeit slowly and despite the length of intervals and stitch.

 

4.

Two chilly cities, take your pick.  Long fugue of hours wrapped in the warm breath of cafés. Whorls of smoke and a wintry sun casting a shadow of delicate leaves against walls, spilling onto the sidewalks. Ways of being alive. (How many do we know?)  Then pick an idea or two. Our river is bursting with them.  A downstream rush, like shiny salmon pushed along belly up, toward the distant blackness of the sea.

History lesson in Hervás (first draft!)

 

Evening falls between mountains.

I walk the stone paved alleys, close my eyes to capture

The scented mixture of damp rock and wood burning stoves

As if there were oil lamps still glowing  on the streets

And sturdy donkeys and cattle on the ground floor of buildings,

their huddled bodies warming the upper abodes, some home to Jews,

 others to Christians, but equally lulled in the temporary silence

 of respite.  Our guide is Maria Sara  and  I am here to

translate for  others, these stories  repeated to children

And tourists,  to be  savored or forgotten. We conjure the next day: 

women stirring  cauldrons of broth,  smoking meats,

in the  upper reaches,  letting fumes out into the village , 

or youngsters running behind their elders, herding sheep out

into the hills beyond bridge and river.  Animal remnants

and aprons set out to dry. Incessant ringing of hooves

on cobblestones, and the strays who slip through narrow allows where 

a hefty soul or person with too many burdens can barely fit.

 We slip through sideways.

Tonight, I surprise myself, finding most of the words to pass on these tidbits ,

or stir gentle awe  with  tales of how once these peoples lived together

in peace.   I stumble, but have by my side smart friends:

They pick up the clues,  dredge up the phrases, evoke the chisel

or the pulley, the mending of a broken spoke, the juniper pulled up from an

orchard.  Adriana from Patagonia can read out the words in Hebrew or Ladino.

Sandra, with her architect's eye,  the signs of wear and repair.

Ours is a kindly bunch.  Entranced by a town, we nurture a thirst for knowing,  and the

Thickness of moonlight.  There has always been hardship.  And wounds that open and close

and reopen.  Exiles, inquisitions.  People who fall silent in the face of edicts, 

who pick up weapons for the wrong war.

Any war.

Airport

 

I was looking for a quiet spot

But here you only get what you pay for 

And a comfortable chair, a place to stretch out your legs

Before or after the journey, it has all gotten pricey.

On the other side of the divide, the business suit crowd

chows down, some counting their calories,

others indulging. These are insatiable

 times. My friend says we keep steady

at the wheel because moving forward is the

spell of sleep  we've been cast into, or because

we are bound by our blood cells or our stories

to others  -  they deserve their chance. 

There is a fresh trail of tears along the highway.

I just figured out why my foot is hurting in time to my heart. 

I swallow my coffee,  imagine myself telling the server

                or even the pilot

 that none of this is the way we wanted it to be.

 Instead, I just count my change,

 pay the bill, mumble thanks, move on.  

Lucky me,  I still have cash  for the wings, 

or the wind on my sails.

RUINA (w.i.p)

 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vYta9mNV0m2TWzxV0P--2Q8tfXF7NgnL/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116745013077065511932&rtpof=true&sd=true