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 Nobodies / Los nadies

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog,
and nobodies dream of escaping from poverty,
that one magical day
good luck will soon rain,
that good luck will pour down,
but good luck doesn't rain, neither yesterday
nor today,nor tomorrow, nor ever,
nor does good fall from the sky in little mild showers,
however much the nobodies call for it,
even if their left hands itch
or they get up using their right feet,
or they change their brooms at new year.

The nobodies: the children of nobody, that masters of nothing,
The nobodies: the nothings, those made nothing,
running after the hare, dying life, fucked, totally fucked:

who are not, although they were.
Who speak no languages, only dialects.
Who have no religions, only superstitions.
Who have have no arts, only crafts.
Who have no culture, only folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who have faces, only arms.
Who don't have names, only numbers.
Who don't count in world history,
just in the local press's stories of violence, crime, misfortune and disaster,.

The nobodies who are worth less than the bullets that kill them.

--- Eduardo Galeano

Sueñan las pulgas con comprarse un perro

y sueñan los nadies con salir de pobres,

que algún mágico día

llueva de pronto la buena suerte,

que llueva a cántaros la buena suerte;

pero la buena suerte no llueve ayer, ni hoy, ni mañana, ni nunca,

ni en llovizna cae del cielo la buena suerte,

por mucho que los nadies la llamen

y aunque les pique la mano izquierda,

o se levanten con el pie derecho,

o empiecen el año cambiando de escoba.

Los nadies: los hijos de nadie, los dueños de nada.

Los nadies: los ningunos, los ninguneados, corriendo la liebre,

muriendo la vida, jodidos, rejodidos.

Que no son, aunque sean.

Que no hablan idiomas, sino dialectos.

Que no profesan religiones, sino supersticiones.

Que no hacen arte, sino artesanías.

Que no practican cultura, sino folklore.

Que no son seres humanos, sino recursos humanos.

Que no tienen cara, sino brazos.

Que no tienen nombre, sino número.

Que no figuran en la historia universal, sino en la crónica roja de la prensa local.

Los nadies, que cuestan menos que la bala que los mata.

Poem of Love (Poema de Amor)

They who widened the Panama Canal
(and were classified “silver roll” and “gold roll”),
they who repaired the Pacific fleet at California bases,
they who rotted in the jails of Guatemala,
Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua *
for being thieves, smugglers, swindlers, for being hungry,
they always suspicious of everything
(“permit me to haul you in as a suspect
for hanging out on corners suspiciously, and furthermore
with the pretentious air of being Salvadorian”),
they who packed the bars and brothels of all the ports
and capitals of the region
(“The Blue Cave,” “Hot Pants,” “Happyland”),
the planters of corn deep in foreign jungles,
the kings of cheap porn,
they who no one knows where they come from,
the best artisans of the world,
they who were stitched by bullets crossing the border,
they who died of malaria
or by the sting of scorpions or yellow fever
in the hell of banana plantations,
the drunkards who cried for the national anthem
under a cyclone of the Pacific or northern snows,
the moochers, the beggars, the dope pushers,
guanaco sons of bitches,
they who hardly made it back,
they who had a little more luck,
the eternally undocumented,
the jack-of-all trades, the hustlers, the gluts,
the first the flash a knife,
the sad, the saddest of all,
my people, my brothers.

---Roque Dalton

*Somoza’s era in Nicaragua.
Translated from the Spanish by Zoë Anglesey and Daniel Flores Ascencio.

The Warrior's Resting Place

The dead are getting more restless each day.

They used to be easy
we’d put on stiff collars flowers
praised their names on long lists
shrines of the homeland
remarkable shadows
monstrous marble.

The corpses signed away for posterity
returned to formation
and marched to the beat of our old music.

But not anymore
the dead
have changed.

They get all ironic
they ask questions.

It seems to me they’ve started to realise
they’re becoming the majority!

--- Roque Dalton

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.

युवा कवि !

लिखो जैसा तुम चाहो 

जिस भी अंदाज़ में। 

पुल के नीचे बहुत सारा रक्त 

बह चुका है सिर्फ़ यह साबित करता हुआ 

कि एक ही रास्ता सही है। 

कविता में सब कुछ जायज़ है 

तुम्हें सिर्फ़ एक कोरे 

काग़ज़ को बेहतर बनाना है। 

 ~ निकानोर पार्रा {अनुवाद: मंगलेश डबराल}

Apolitical Intellectuals (Intelectuales Apolíticos)

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with “the idea
of the nothing”
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.

They won’t be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward’s death.

They’ll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.

On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they’ll ask:

“What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?”

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.

Your own misery
will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your shame.

--- Otto Rene Castillo

Un día,

los intelectuales

apolíticos

de mi país

serán interrogados

por el hombre

sencillo

de nuestro pueblo.

Se les preguntará

sobre lo que hicieron

cuando

la patria se apagaba

lentamente,

como una hoguera dulce,

pequeña y sola.

No serán interrogados

sobre sus trajes,

ni sobre sus largas

siestas

después de la merienda,

tampoco sobre sus estériles

combates con la nada,

ni sobre su ontológica

manera

de llegar a las monedas.

No se les interrogará

sobre la mitología griega,

ni sobre el asco

que sintieron de sí,

cuando alguien, en su fondo,

se disponía a morir cobardemente.

Nada se les preguntará

sobre sus justificaciones

absurdas,

crecidas a la sombra

de una mentira rotunda.

Ese día vendrán

los hombres sencillos.

Los que nunca cupieron

en los libros y versos

de los intelectuales apolíticos,

pero que llegaban todos los días

a dejarles la leche y el pan,

los huevos y las tortillas,

los que les cosían la ropa,

los que le manejaban los carros,

les cuidaban sus perros y jardines,

y trabajaban para ellos,

y preguntarán,

«¿Qué hicisteis cuando los pobres

sufrían, y se quemaba en ellos,

gravemente, la ternura y la vida?»

Intelectuales apolíticos

de mi dulce país,

no podréis responder nada.

Os devorará un buitre de silencio

las entrañas.

Os roerá el alma

vuestra propia miseria.

Y callaréis,

avergonzados de vosotros...

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth…
And you learn and learn…With every good-bye you learn..

--- Jorge Luis Borges

The Art Of Poetry

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

--- Jorge Luis Borges

"Estadio Chile", or "Somos Cinco Mil"

There are five thousand of us herein this small part of the city.
We are five thousand.
I wonder how many we are in all
in the cities and in the whole country?
Here alone
are ten thousand hands which plant seeds
and make the factories run.
How much humanity
exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain,
moral pressure, terror and insanity?
Six of us were lost
as if into starry space.
One dead, another beaten as I could never have believed
a human being could be beaten.
The other four wanted to end their terror
one jumping into nothingness,
another beating his head against a wall,
but all with the fixed stare of death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them.
To them, blood equals medals,
slaughter is an act of heroism.
Oh God, is this the world that you created,
for this your seven days of wonder and work?
Within these four walls only a number exists
which does not progress,
which slowly will wish more and more for death.
But suddenly my conscience awakes
and I see that this tide has no heartbeat,
only the pulse of machines
and the military showing their midwives' faces
full of sweetness.
Let Mexico, Cuba and the world
cry out against this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hands
which can produce nothing.
How many of us in the whole country?
The blood of our President, our compañero,
will strike with more strength than bombs and machine guns!
So will our fist strike again!

How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel
Will give birth to the momentÂ…

---Victor Jara

Estadio Chile

Somos cinco mil aquí

en esta pequeña parte de la ciudad.

Somos cinco mil.

¿Cuántos somos en total

en las ciudades y en todo el país?

Somos aquí diez mil manos

que siembran y hacen andar las fábricas.

¡Cuánta humanidad

con hambre, frío, pánico, dolor,

presión moral, terror y locura!

Seis de los nuestros se perdieron

en el espacio de las estrellas.

Un muerto, un golpeado como jamás creí

se podría golpear a un ser humano.

Los otros cuatro quisieron quitarse todos los temores,

uno saltando al vacío,

otro golpeándose la cabeza contra el muro,

pero todos con la mirada fija de la muerte.

¡Qué espanto causa el rostro del fascismo!

Llevan a cabo sus planes con precisión artera sin importarles nada.

La sangre para ellos son medallas.

La matanza es acto de heroísmo.

¿Es este el mundo que creaste, Dios mío?

¿Para esto tus siete días de asombro y trabajo?

En estas cuatro murallas sólo existe un número que no progresa.

Que lentamente querrá la muerte.

Pero de pronto me golpea la conciencia

y veo esta marea sin latido

y veo el pulso de las máquinas

y los militares mostrando su rostro de matrona lleno de dulzura.

¿Y México, Cuba, y el mundo?

¡Que griten esta ignominia!

Somos diez mil manos que no producen.

¿Cuántos somos en toda la patria?

La sangre del compañero Presidente

golpea más fuerte que bombas y metrallas.

Así golpeará nuestro puño nuevamente.

Canto, qué mal me sales

cuando tengo que cantar espanto.

Espanto como el que vivo, como el que muero, espanto.

De verme entre tantos y tantos momentos del infinito

en que el silencio y el grito son las metas de este canto.

Lo que nunca vi, lo que he sentido y lo que siento

hará brotar el momento…

The black heralds

There are blows in life, so powerful…I don't know!
Blows as from the hatred of God; as if, facing them,
the undertow of everything suffered
welled up in the soul…I don't know!

They are few; but they are…. They open dark trenches
in the fiercest face and in the strongest back.
Perhaps they are the colts of barbaric Attilas;
or the black heralds sent to us by Death.

They are the deep falls of the Christs of the soul,
of some adored faith blasphemed by Destiny.
Those bloodstained blows are the crackling of
bread burning up at the oven door.

And man…. Poor…poor! He turns his eyes, as
when a slap on the shoulder summons us;
turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived
wells up, like a pool of guilt, in his look.

There are blows in life, so powerful…I don't know!

--- Cesar Vallejo and translated by Robert Bly

दुनिया भर में डर

जो लोग काम पर लगे हैं
वे भयभीत हैं
कि उनकी नौकरी छूट जायेगी

 जो काम पर नहीं लगे
 वे भयभीत हैं
 कि उनको कभी काम नहीं मिलेगा

जिन्हें चिंता नहीं है
भूख की वे भयभीत हैं
खाने को लेकर

 लोकतंत्र भयभीत है
 याद दिलाये जाने से
 और भाषा भयभीत है

बोले जाने को लेकर आम नागरिक डरते हैं सेना से,
सेना डरती है हथियारों की कमी से
हथियार डरते हैं कि युद्धों की कमी है

यह भय का समय है
स्त्रियाँ डरती हैं हिंसक पुरुषों से
और पुरुष डरते हैं निर्भय स्त्रियों से

चोरों का डर,
पुलिस का डर
डर बिना ताले के दरवाज़ों का,

घड़ियों के बिना समय का बिना टेलीविज़न बच्चों का,
डर नींद की गोली के बिना रात का
और दिन जगने वाली गोली के बिना भीड़ का भय,

एकांत का भय
भय कि क्या था पहले
और क्या हो सकता है
मरने का भय,
जीने का भय.

 --- एदुआर्दो_गालेआनो

औरतें हैं हम

औरतें हैं हम
खाना नहीं हैं
मेज़ पर धरा हुआ
छिलो, हड्डियाँ निकालो
भर लो अपना पेट
कूड़ा नहीं है कूड़ेदान में समा जाने के लिए

औरतें हैं हम
गुड़ियाँ नहीं
जिनसे खेलो, उतार दो कपड़े
तैयार करो, क़ैद करो
एक पालने में और सजा दो
एक शेल्फ पर

औरतें हैं हम
ज़मीन नहीं हैं जिसे खोदोगे ताम्बे
रत्न और स्वर्ण के लिए
उगाओ और परती छोड़ दो
फसल के बाद

गीली मिट्टी सा उसे
रौंदो या बना दो
एक गोद कंकालों के लिए

औरतें हैं हम
मनुष्य भी
रोबोट या चिथड़े नहीं
न ही बर्तन न शौचालय
सपना नहीं हैं जिसका मन नहीं कोई
तसवीर नहीं हैं भागो तुम जिसके पीछे
उड़ते बादल पर बैठकर

औरतें हैं हम
धात्रियाँ संतानों की
दुनिया के वारिसों की
हम जानती हैं करना अंतर
आकारों में दिन और रात में
अलग कर सकती हैं हम
इंद्रधनुष के रंग

हम जानती हैं सम्भालना
एक ढहती हुई आत्मा को
जानती हैं प्यार करना
एक सोचने वाले दिल को
हम जानती हैं भिड़ जाना
और सीधा करना टेढों को
बागबानी करते हुए
सँवारना दुनिया को ।

--- Marra Lanot (हिंदी अनुवाद : Su Jata)

Masses

. . .When the battle was over,
and the fighter was dead, a man came toward him
and said to him: “Do not die; I love you so!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.

. . .And two came near, and told him again and again:
“Do not leave us! Courage! Return to life!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.

. . .Twenty arrived, a hundred, a thousand, five hundred thousand,
shouting: “So much love, and it can do nothing against death!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.

. . .Millions of persons stood around him,
all speaking the same thing: “Stay here, brother!”
But the corpse, it was sad! went on dying.

. . .Then all the men of the earth
stood around him; the corpse looked at them sadly, deeply moved;
he sat up slowly,
put his arms around the first man; started to walk. . .

--- Cesar Vallejo and translated by Robert Bly

प्रश्नपत्र

अकवि क्या है:

वह, जो ताबूत और अस्थि-कलश की दलाली करता है?

एक जनरल, जो खुद के बारे में ही निश्चित नहीं है?

एक पादरी, जिसे किसी चीज पर आस्था नहीं है?

एक सैलानी, जिसके लिए हर चीज अजीब है; वृद्धावस्था और मृत्यु भी?

एक वक्ता, जिस पर आप विश्वास नहीं कर सकते?

खड़ी-चट्टान की कोर पर खड़ी एक नर्तकी ?

एक आत्ममुग्ध, जो हर किसी से प्यार करता है?

एक जोकर, जो गाल बजाता है

और बेवज़ह यूँ ही बुरा बनता है ?

एक कवि जो कुर्सी पर सोता है?

आधुनिक समय का एक कीमियागर?

एक आरामतलब क्रांतिकारी?

एक पेटी-बुर्जुआ?

एक जालसाज?

एक ईश्वर?

एक मासूम?

सैंटियागो, चिली का एक किसान?

सही उत्तर को रेखांकित करें.

अकविता क्या है:

चाय की प्याली में एक तूफ़ान?

चट्टान पर बर्फ का एक धब्बा?

मानव-मल से ऊपर तक भरा एक पतीला,

जैसा कि फादर साल्वेतियेरा मानता है?

एक आइना, जो झूठ नहीं बोलता?

लेखक-संगठन के अध्यक्ष के गाल पर पड़ा एक तमाचा?

(ईश्वर उनके आत्मा की रक्षा करे!)

युवा कवियों को एक चेतावनी?

जेट-चालित एक ताबूत?

एक ताबूत, जो वायुमंडलीय दायरे से बाहर परिक्रमा करता है?

एक ताबूत, जो कि केरोसिन से चलता है?

एक शवदाह-गृह, जहाँ कोई शव नहीं है?

सही उत्तर के सामने X चिन्हित करें.

---निकानोर पार्रा (उदय शंकर द्वारा अनुदित)

सेलफ़ोन

आप अपने सेलफ़ोन पर बात करते हैं

करते रहते हैं,

करते जाते हैं

और हँसते हैं अपने सेलफ़ोन पर

यह न जानते हुए कि वह कैसे बना था

और यह तो और भी नहीं कि वह कैसे काम करता है

लेकिन इससे क्या फ़र्क़ पड़ता है

परेशानी की बात यह कि

आप नहीं जानते

जैसे मैं भी नहीं जानता था

कि कांगो में मौत के शिकार होते हैं बहुत से लोग

हज़ारों हज़ार

इस सेलफ़ोन की वजह से

वे मौत के मुँह में जाते हैं कांगो में

उसके पहाड़ों में कोल्टन होता है

(सोने और हीरे के अलावा)

जो काम आता है सेलफ़ोन के

कण्डेंसरों में

खनिजों पर क़ब्ज़ा करने के लिए

बहुराष्ट्रीय निगम

छेड़े रहते हैं एक अन्तहीन जंग

15 साल में 50 लाख मृतक

और वे नहीं चाहते कि यह बात

लोगों को पता चले

विशाल सम्पदा वाला देश

जिसकी आबादी त्रस्त है ग़रीबी से

दुनिया के 80 प्रतिशत कोल्टन के

भण्डार हैं कांगो में

कोल्टन वहाँ छिपा हुआ है

तीस हज़ार लाख वर्षों से

नोकिया, मोटरोला, कम्पाक, सोनी

ख़रीदते हैं कोल्टन

और पेंटागन भी, न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स

कारपोरेशन भी,

और वे इसका पता नहीं चलने देना चाहते

वे नहीं चाहते कि युद्ध ख़त्म हो

ताकि कोल्टन को हथियाया जाना जारी रह सके

7 से 10 साल तक के बच्चे निकालते हैं कोल्टन

क्योंकि छोटे छेदों में आसानी से

समा जाते हैं

उनके छोटे शरीर

25 सेण्ट रोज़ाना की मजूरी पर

और झुण्ड के झुण्ड बच्चे मर जाते हैं

कोल्टन पाउडर के कारण

या चट्टानों पर चोट करने की वजह से

जो गिर पड़ती है उनके ऊपर

न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स भी

नहीं चाहता कि यह बात पता चले

और इस तरह अज्ञात ही रहता है

बहुराष्ट्रीय कम्पनियों का

यह संगठित अपराध

बाइबिल में पहचाना गया है

सत्य और न्याय

और प्रेम और सत्य

तब उस सत्य की अहमियत में

जो हमें मुक्त करेगा

शामिल है कोल्टन का सत्य भी

कोल्टन जो आपके सेलफ़ोन के भीतर है

जिस पर आप बात करते हैं करते जाते हैं

और हँसते हैं सेलफ़ोन पर बात करते हुए

---एर्नेस्तो कार्देनाल
अनुवाद: मंगलेश डबराल

Lord’s Prayer

Our Father which art in heaven
Full of all manner of problems
With a wrinkled brow
(As if you were a common everyday man)
Think no more of us.
We understand that you suffer
Because you can’t put everything in order.
We know the Demon will not leave you alone
Tearing down everything you build.
He laughs at you
But we weep with you:
Don’t pay any attention to his devilish laughter.
Our Father who art where thou art
Surrounded by unfaithful Angels
Sincerely don’t suffer any more for us
You must take into account
That the gods are not infallible
And that we have come to forgive everything.

--- Nicanor Parra [translated from the Spanish by Miller Williams]

Padrenuestro

Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos

Lleno de toda clase de problemas

Con el ceño fruncido

Como si fueras un hombre común y corriente

No pienses más en nosotros.

Comprendemos que sufres

Porque no puedes arreglar a los hombres.

Sabemos que el demonio no te deja tranquilo

Desbaratando lo que tú construyes.

Él se ríe de ti

Pero nosotros lloramos contigo:

No le hagas caso a esa risa diabólica.

Padre nuestro que estás donde estás

Rodeado de ángeles desleales

Sinceramente, no sufras por nosotros

Debes considerar

Que los dioses no son infalibles

Y que hemos decidido perdonar todo.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

---Pablo Neruda

Like you (Como tu)

I, like you,
love love, life, the sweet delight
of things, the blue
landscape of January days.

Also my blood bubbles over
laughing through my eyes
which have known the rush of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful,
that poetry is, like bread, for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
things,
countryside and bread,
poetry for everyone.

---Roque Dalton

Yo, como tú,

amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto

de las cosas, el paisaje

celeste de los días de enero.

También mi sangre bulle

y río por los ojos

que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.

Creo que el mundo es bello,

que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.

Y que mis venas no terminan en mí

sino en la sangre unánime

de los que luchan por la vida,

el amor,

las cosas,

el paisaje y el pan,

la poesía de todos.

Curse

Furrowed motherland,
I swear that in your ashes
you will be born like a flower of eternal water

I swear that from your mouth of thirst
will come to the air the petals of bread,
the spilt inaugurated flower.

Cursed, cursed, cursed be those
who with an ax and serpent came to your earthly arena,
cursed those who waited for this day to open the door of the dwelling
to the moor and the bandit:
What have you achieved?

Bring,
bring the lamp,
see the soaked earth,
see the blackened little bone eaten by the flames,
the garment of murdered Spain.

--- Pablo Neruda from Spain In Our Hearts (1973) translated by Donald D. Walsh