contingências

(escrevi ano passado, traduzi recentemente)

Contingências

Por vezes, a simples falta de

postura devasta tudo. Ou a abertura

pequena  por onde a luz entra sem querer

numa cena de escuridão perfeita.

Porém outras vezes não

se trata de detalhes, nem

 faltam lente, lupa ou

binóculos.  Deu incêndio.  Estava

na cara,  todo mundo já percebia:

o carteiro, a professora, o gari que

varria a rua.  Só você,

menina boba, que não percebia,

Quem nunca quis estudar

o roteiro,  quem sempre foi

impaciência pura.

the stones (Teotihuacán)

So, cleaning out drawers and file cabinets may be a
 very tedious endeavor, butsometimes you find poems from
 10, 20, 30 years back... some are good, some are
hopeless, and some worth reworking, like - I think - this one:

the stones  (teotihuacán)

i.

it had rained that day

among the pyramids.

slow climb up the rocks

under the sun as ancient

as midday, as the corn planters.

raspy tongues of stone

serpents against my bare

arms, jaguar eyes catching the

rays, coming to life

coatlicue the mexica

came back across the centuries

laughing at the whiteness of my legs

and warning me, beware of the

barbudos.  i in my foolish haste

 opened that night to my first

 love,  readied for whatever

comes next

ii.

a jagged crater

like the mouth of the

world, a place to feel small in,

fragile perhaps but not too

fragile for the load:  pebble,

boulder, the labor

of dragging  the stones.

iii.

but there were other words

too.  and a wordless language.

at dusk, the sharing of

strangeness.  a pocket of

warmth.  someone who listened.

we groped for each other across the

distance of darkness, each from

one side, against the beaded

screen of nightfall.

iv.

there is a window in this house

of stone.  old  shutters that keep

banging open and shut, and then,

open again. a shifting sky.  i go out

into the quarry, but  the stones are

just too heavy.  there is a bent shape

on the horizon, back turned toward me,

heading down the road toward

the pueblo.   a woman in feather
and rags, a silvery braid the thickness
of centuries. she pivots on her
bare feet,  shields her eyes, a gaze,
wry laughter, then pivots again. could this 

be it? come back, Coatlicue, 

teach me something i haven´t

yet learned. 

two poems of mine, from long ago (salvaging?)

Island

today on the island
we walked deep into our own wild hearts.
a ship from texas was bare red steel,
parks cluttered with summer,
a bronze-skinned lady who
smiled, sold you some pages
   from someone's past
would have loved you

back at the docks
we watched
families rush home
    to their evening.
you rested your head on my silence.
there were pigeons
    flapping above,
driving us back
    into Manhattan.

 (late 80s early nineties, NYC)


the wreck

(this was a longer poem, from which I have 'rescued' only the first stanza; the rest just didn't seem to be salvageable)


Though the children huddle at the roadside
clinging to fragments of windshield, a broken
hupcap, a bone from the steering wheel,
it is only inside our own cavernous skulls
that the memory is kept:  the place the road
took an unexpected turn, a curve too sharp
for our tires.  I would keep talking all
night while you wanted silence, a detour
from the blinding lights of each passing
town.  And I was always wanting
to dance.

Frank O' Hara/ nova tradução em andamento

 NOW THAT I AM IN MADRID AND CAN THINK.

I think of you

and the continents brilliant and arid

and the slender heart you are sharing my share of with the American air

as the lungs I have felt sonorously subside slowly greet each morning

and your brown lashes flutter revealing two perfect dawns colored by New York

see a vast bridge stretching to the humbled outskirts with only you

          standing on the edge of the purple like an only tree

and in Toledo the olive groves' soft blue look at the hills with silver

      like glasses like an old lady's hair

it's well known that God and I don't get along together

it's just a view of the brass works to me, I don't care about the Moors

seen through you the great works of death, you are greater

you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone

AGORA QUE ESTOU EM MADRI E CONSIGO PENSAR.

Penso em você

 e nos continentes cintilantes e áridos

e no esbelto coração que você divide dividindo minha parte  com o ar da América

como os pulmões que senti num diminuir sonoro, saúdam devagar a manhã

e os teus cílios marrons esvoaçam revelando duas alvoradas perfeitas cores de Nova Iorque

vejo uma ponte enorme que se estende até os humilhados subúrbios onde só você

    em pé à beira do púrpura como uma única árvore

e em Toledo o suave azul dos oliveirais,  olho para as colinas prateadas

    como óculos como o cabelo de uma anciã

é fato conhecido que Deus e eu não nos damos muito bem

para mim é uma simples oficina de latão, não me importo com os mouros

vistas através de você as grandes obras da morte, você é muito maior 

você está sorrindo, você está esvaziando o mundo para que possamos ficar a sós

tradução:  Miriam Adelman

Assia Djebar and I.

Going away would return me to myself. Far away, a foreigner at last - the fruits and the pulp of being foreign, a foreigner even to my memories and my future.  Vacant, nascent. To leave!

Assia Djebar, The Tongue's Blood does not Run Dry: Algerian Stories

(For Assia)

there is rain washing this

  chance of desert,  aroma

of oasis and pine.  there

is a winter white which in the

fugitive sunlight could be warning,

  could be

       warming, could

                     almost be the white

of yr blanched algiers

walls, and blue doorways

   adorned with a chain of bells

   and a fine yellow script

and white veils blowing along the

street, imperceptible patter of feet

over the ancient cobblestone -

       as if there were no one 
       inside, nothing but air
       and muted desire, as if 

there were never

a boat at the dock,

a light at the end

of the tunnel.

                   Image: Miriam Adelman (Street art, Montevideo)

Ya no soy un caballo/ Germaine Calderón

Many years ago I found this poem, by Germaine Calderón, in Mexico City's "La Jornada".
And I carried it with me - a flimsy newspaper clipping thrown into a folder with other poems
that I had found and old typed manuscripts of my own - twice across the continents.  Until one day I decided to share it here, and try my luck at this Spanish to English translation.  A 'work in progress' still!

Ya no soy un caballo
    Germaine Calderón

Hay signos
desesperanzas en duelo
algunos vagabundos
en crecimiento con la noche
con el olor del mundo
muchachos
como pájaros tímidos

Los montes marineros azules
nosotros silenciosos
buscando algún rellano
un pueblo más que este
insignificante en tres patas
una sombra del tamaño del agua
y un vino incesante
a la hora de la memoria
para caer tumbados en las lindes
donde se rie
com una extraña mueca
por nuestra desnudez obcena

Hoy he volteado
mi sueño como un guante
yo mismo
me he puesto a secar por el reverso
y el corazón se extraña
de su doblez
de su flanco
de su tamaño inminente
y yo me extraño
de ser tan parecido
a un hombre

Siempre pensé que era un caballo
las gentes me llamaban por mi nombre
y yo acudia
con un instinto manso

Amaba la corteza llovida
el grano tierno como dádiva
y creia
en los músculos simples
en la rapidez del aire
en la oración impaciente
desbocada

Entonces
los árboles
semejaban guerreros
lo verde venia de las raíces
y las raíces no tenian
un lugar fijo

En esas largas caminatas
se estrenaban los dias
y no habia outro lenguaje que vivir
de uma manera recia
desde el origen
casi brutalmente

Sabia que estar
era doblegarse
por disciplina
no por hambre
que era el tiempo de los mitos
de los encantadores
con sus flautas

La medida era el fuego
el bienestar residia
en ser
de pronto
de la crin a los nervios
rebelde
y sin embargo,
el ojo siempre
agrandado
por la mansedumbre

Pero hoy me descubro
tan igualmente a todos
limitado en ideas
en trabajo
y tan sólo
y tan sólo mirando

Now that  I am no longer a horse.

There are signs

 duels of despair

hobos who wander

and grow with the night

with the aromas of the world,

boys like birds

in their shyness

The mountains,  blue´clad sailors

and we here silent,

seeking some flatland

some little town that is more

than this one,

insignificant on its three legs

a shadow in the measure of water

and wine, incessant

at the hour of memory

where we collapse on the hillsides

where there is laughter,

like a strange grimace

in the face of our obscene
exposure.

Today I have turned my

dreams inside out like a glove,

I have turned myself out to dry

my heart puzzled

by its seams

and its flanks

by its imminent size

and I am puzzled

to find myself looking
   so much

like a human.

I always thought I was a horse

people called me by my name

and I came

 by gentle instinct

I loved the damp bark

grains as tender as a gift

and I believed

in simple muscles

in the swiftness of air

in impatient, runaway

phrase

In those days

trees were like

warriors

and greenness shot up

from the roots

and roots were fixed

nowhere

On those long strolls

  a debut of days 

and there was no other language

    for living

except in a way that was hard

almost brutal

from the start

I knew that to be

was to give in -

to discipline

and not in hunger

that these were the days of tales

of charmers and their flutes

Measures were welded in fire

and well being meant being

suddenly

from mane to nerves,

a rebel

but always with the wide

rounded eyes of the docile

Today however

I discover myself

 so much the same

as all others,so

  bounded in ideas

    in labor

and just watching, 

merely watching.

  English version:

Miriam Adelman

Ya no soy un caballo/ Germaine Calderón

Many years ago I found this poem, by Germaine Calderón, in Mexico City's "La Jornada".
And I carried it with me - a flimsy newspaper clipping thrown into a folder with other poems
that I had found and old typed manuscripts of my own - twice across the continents.  Until one day I decided to share it here, and try my luck at this Spanish to English translation.  A 'work in progress' still!

Ya no soy un caballo
    Germaine Calderón

Hay signos
desesperanzas en duelo
algunos vagabundos
en crecimiento con la noche
con el olor del mundo
muchachos
como pájaros tímidos

Los montes marineros azules
nosotros silenciosos
buscando algún rellano
un pueblo más que este
insignificante en tres patas
una sombra del tamaño del agua
y un vino incesante
a la hora de la memoria
para caer tumbados en las lindes
donde se rie
com una extraña mueca
por nuestra desnudez obcena

Hoy he volteado
mi sueño como un guante
yo mismo
me he puesto a secar por el reverso
y el corazón se extraña
de su doblez
de su flanco
de su tamaño inminente
y yo me extraño
de ser tan parecido
a un hombre

Siempre pensé que era un caballo
las gentes me llamaban por mi nombre
y yo acudia
con un instinto manso

Amaba la corteza llovida
el grano tierno como dádiva
y creia
en los músculos simples
en la rapidez del aire
en la oración impaciente
desbocada

Entonces
los árboles
semejaban guerreros
lo verde venia de las raíces
y las raíces no tenian
un lugar fijo

En esas largas caminatas
se estrenaban los dias
y no habia outro lenguaje que vivir
de uma manera recia
desde el origen
casi brutalmente

Sabia que estar
era doblegarse
por disciplina
no por hambre
que era el tiempo de los mitos
de los encantadores
con sus flautas

La medida era el fuego
el bienestar residia
en ser
de pronto
de la crin a los nervios
rebelde
y sin embargo,
el ojo siempre
agrandado
por la mansedumbre

Pero hoy me descubro
tan igualmente a todos
limitado en ideas
en trabajo
y tan sólo
y tan sólo mirando

Now that  I am no longer a horse.

There are signs

 duels of despair

hobos who wander

and grow with the night

with the aromas of the world,

boys like birds

in their shyness

The mountains,  blue´clad sailors

and we here silent,

seeking some flatland

some little town that is more

than this one,

insignificant on its three legs

a shadow in the measure of water

and wine, incessant

at the hour of memory

where we collapse on the hillsides

where there is laughter,

like a strange grimace

in the face of our obscene
exposure.

Today I have turned my

dreams inside out like a glove,

I have turned myself out to dry

my heart puzzled

by its seams

and its flanks

by its imminent size

and I am puzzled

to find myself looking
   so much

like a human.

I always thought I was a horse

people called me by my name

and I came

 by gentle instinct

I loved the damp bark

grains as tender as a gift

and I believed

in simple muscles

in the swiftness of air

in impatient, runaway

prayer

In those days

trees were like

warriors

and greenness shot up

from the roots

and roots were fixed

nowhere

On those long strolls

  a debut of days 

and there was no other language

    for living

except in a way that was hard

almost brutal

from the start

I knew that to be

was to give in -

to discipline

and not in hunger

that these were the days of tales

of charmers and their flutes

Measures were welded in fire

and well being meant being

suddenly

from mane to nerves,

a rebel

but always with the wide

rounded eyes of the docile

Today however

I discover myself

 so much the same

as all others,so

  bounded in ideas

    in labor

and just watching, 

merely watching.

  English version:

Miriam Adelman