It is Night, in My Study (La Noche de Don Miguel)

It is night, in my study.
The deepest solitude; I hear the steady
shudder in my breast
—for it feels all alone,
and blanched by my mind—
and I hear my blood
with even murmur
fill up the silence.

You might say the thin stream
falls in the waterclock and fills the bottom.
Here, in the night, all alone, this is my study;
the books don't speak;
my oil lamp
bathes these pages in a light of peace,
light of a chapel.

The books don't speak;
of the poets, the meditators, the learned,
the spirits drowse;
and it is as if around me circled
cautious death.

I turn at times to see if it waits,
I search the dark,
I try to discern among the shadows
its thin shadow,
I think of heart failure,
think about my strong age; since my fortieth year
two more have passed.

Toward a looming temptation
here, in the solitude, the silence turns me—
the silence and the shadows.

And I tell myself: "Perhaps when soon
they come to tell me
that supper awaits,
they will discover a body here
pallid and cold
—the thing that I was, this one who waits—
just like those books quiet and rigid,
the blood already stopped,
jelling in the veins,
the chest silent
under the gentle light of the soothing oil,
a funeral lamp.

I tremble to end these lines
that they do not seem
an unusual testament,
but rather a mysterious message
from the shade beyond,
lines dictated by the anxiety
of eternal life.
I finished them and yet I live on.

---Miguel de Unamuno

translated by William Stafford and Lillian Jean Stafford.

Parece que el delgado chorro

cayera en la clepsidra y la llenara.

Aquí, en la noche, solo, este es mi estudio;

los libros no hablan;

mi lámpara de aceite

baña estas páginas en luz de paz,

luz de capilla.

Los libros no hablan;

los poetas, pensadores, sabios,

espíritus dormidos;

y parece que en torno me rondara

cauta la muerte.

Me vuelvo a veces para ver si espera,

escudriño la sombra,

quiero entre sombras distinguir su sombra,

su tenue sombra,

pienso en el mal del corazón,

pienso en mi recia edad; desde mis cuarenta

dos años han pasado.

Hacia una gran tentación

aquí, en la soledad, el silencio me empuja—

el silencio y las sombras.

Y me digo: “Quizá cuando muy pronto

vengan a anunciarme

que la cena me aguarda,

hallarán aquí un cuerpo

yerto y callado,

la cosa que yo fui, este que espera,

cual esos libros mudos y rígidos,

la sangre detenida

cuajada en las venas,

el pecho muerto

bajo la suave luz de la benigna lumbre,

la lámpara funeraria.

Tiemblo al acabar mis versos

por si no pareciesen

un raro testamento,

sino un oscuro mensaje

desde la otra ribera,

dictados por las ansias

de la vida eterna.

Acabados están, ¡y aún sigo vivo!

The Snowfall Is So Silent (La nevada es tan silenciosa)

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless;
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls,
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

---Miguel de Unamuno
translated by Robert Bly

La nevada es silenciosa.

La nevada es silenciosa, cosa lenta;

poco a poco y con blandura reposa

sobre la tierra y cobija a la llanura.

Posa la nieve callada

sobre las flores y los tejados,

sobre los campos dormidos,

sobre los caminos solitarios.

La nieve es blanca, pura y leve,

como un manto de silencio.

Se posa en los árboles,

en las piedras,

y en la calma de la vida.

Caen los copos despacio,

cubren todo con su paz,

y en el blanco sueño invernal

se esconde la ternura del alma.

Time

This line is the present.

That line you just read is the past
(It fell behind after you read it)
The rest of the poem is the future,
existing outside your
awareness.

The words
are here, whether you read them
or not. And nothing in the world
can change that.

--- Joan Brossa, Translated by A.Z. Foreman.