Poesía

A prayer to go to paradise with the donkeys

Estándar

When I must come to you O my God, I pray 

It be some dusty-roaded holiday, 

and even as in my travels here below, 

I beg to choose by what road I shall go 

to paradise, where the clear stars shine by day. 

*

I’ll take my walking-stick and go my way, 

and to my friends the donkeys I shall say, 

«I am Francis Jammes and I’m going to paradise, 

for there is no hell in the land of the loving God.» 

*

And I’ll say to them: «come sweet friends of the blue skies, 

poor creatures who, with the flap of the ears or a nod 

of the head, shake off the buffets, the bees, the flies…”

Let me come with these donkeys Lord into your land, 

these beasts who bow their heads so gently, and stand 

with their small feet joined together in a fashion 

utterly gentle, asking your compassion. 

*

I shall arrive, followed by their thousands of ears, 

followed by those with baskets at their flanks, 

by those who lug the carts of mountebanks 

or loads of feather-dusters and kitchen-wares, 

by those with humps of battered water-cans,

by bottle-shaped she-asses who halt and stumble, 

by those tricked out in little pantaloons 

to cover their wet, blue galls where flies assemble 

in whirling swarms, making a drunken hum. 

*

Dear God, let it be with these donkeys that I come, 

and let it be that angels lead us in peace 

to leafy streams, where cherries tremble in air, 

sleek as the laughing flesh of girls; and there

in that haven of souls, let it be that, leaning above 

Your divine waters, I shall resemble these donkeys,

whose humble and sweet poverty will appear 

clear in the clearness of your eternal love.

Francis Jammes. France (1868-1938)

traducido por Richard Wilbur

The undead

Estándar

Even as children they were late sleepers,

preferring their dreams, even when quick with monsters,

to the world with all its breakable toys,

its compacts with the dying.

*

From the stretched arms of whitered trees

they turned, fearing contagion of the mortal,

and even under the plums of summer

drifted like winter moons.

*

Secret, unfriendly, pale, possessed

of the one wish, the thirst for mere survival,

they came, as all extremists do

in time, to a sort of grandeur:

now, to they Balkans battlements

above the vulgar town of their first lives,

they rise at the moon’s rising. Strange

that their utter self-concern

should, in the end, have left them selfless:

mirrors fail to perceive them as they float

trough the great hall and up the staircase;

nor are the cobwebs broken.

*

Into the pallid night emerging,

wrapped in their flapping capes, routinely maddened

by a wolf’s cry, they stand for a moment

stoking the mind’s eye.

*

With lewd thoughts of the pressed flowers

and bric-a-brac of rooms with something to lose,

of love-dismembered dolls, and children

buried in quiet sleep.

*

Then they are off in a negative frenzy,

their black shapes cropped into sudden bats

that swarm, burst, and are gone. Thinking

of a thrush cold in the leaves.

*

Who has sung his few summers truly,

or an old scholar resting his eyes at last,

we cannot be much impressed with vampires,

colorful though they are;

nevertheless, their pain is real,

and requires our pity. Think how sad it must be

to thirst always for a scorned elixir,

the salt quotidian blood

which, if mistrusted, has no savor;

to prey on life forever and not possess it,

as rock-hollows, tide after tide,

glassily strand the sea.

Richard Wilbur. USA (1921-2017)

A fire truck

Estándar

Right down the shocked street with a siren-blast

that sends all else skittering to the curb,

redness, brass, ladders and hats hurl past,

blurring to sheer verb,

*

shift at the corner into uproarious gear

and make it around the turn in a squall of traction,

the headlong bell maintaining sure and clear,

thought is degraded action!

*

Beatiful, heavy, unweary, loud, obvious thing!

I stand here purged of nuance, my mind a blank.

All I was brooding upon has taken wing,

and I have you to thank.

*

As you howl beyond hearing I carry you into my mind,

ladders and brass and all, here to admire

your phoenix-red simplicity, enshrined

in that not extinguished fire.

Richard Wilbur. USA (1921-2017)

A Mercedes Sosa

Estándar

No sé qué fuerza vital tiene la lluvia

que evoca en mí tu voz de cordillera,

tu voz de libertades sin frontera.

*

Voz que es guitarra y es abrigo.

*

Unica al dolor del afligido

de hombres y mujeres oprimidos.

*

Voz de cantor de pueblos tristes,

de labriegos, de obreros, de estudiantes,

combatientes de paz y guerra.

*

Tu voz de mar azul y caracolas.

De arena, de sal, de viento enardecido

que no alcanza a quebrantar las olas.

*

Voz que se levanta cristalina

con luces de unicornio y de quimeras

cual dulce despertar de estrellas.

Voz de sol, de tules, de azucena.

De matices, de verde primavera.

Voz de cristal que no se quiebra.

*

De ruiseñor, de carretero errante,

de pueblo de gesto antiguo, solidario

tendida la mano al caminante.

*

Tu voz, Mercedes, que reverdece

en cada gota perfumada de rocío.

Y en cada amanecer, florece.

*

Voz que crece igual que los trigales

de pueblos oprimidos y olvidados

que a pesar de tanto olvido, ¡crecen!

“Servilletas de otoño”

Luis Scheker Ortiz. Rep. Dominicana

La lluvia y tú

Estándar

La lluvia pertinaz golpea mis sentidos.

Desde algún lugar remoto dispara

como misil gruesas gotas invisibles.

El viento tormentoso le acompaña

gruñendo cual celoso Otelo,

que cubre con su manto gris su rostro.

La lluvia, potro desbocado, sin dejar

de ser hermosa, con casos centelleantes

hoy el suelo de arcilla apisonado.

La lluvia triste, humillada y vencida,

abre sus pobres surcos sedientos

herida de miseria campesina.

La lluvia no da tregua, cruel castiga,

Arrasa el suelo, fulmina sembradíos.

Deja sus huellas de angustia y fatigas.

Con ruego, el astro rey ha de irrumpir

cargado de rayos luminosos, a rescatar

los surcos de la tierra virgen maltratados,

Como la tierra huérfana, sedienta,

arrasada, en espera del sol que la redima,

así quedó mi alma destrozada.

“Servilletas de otoño”

Luis Scheker Ortiz. Rep. Dominicana

El gallo despertador

Estándar

Kikirikííí…

estoy aquí

decía el gallo Colibrí.

*

El gallo Colibrí era pelirrojo,

y era su traje

de hermoso plumaje.

*

Kikirikííí…

levántate campesino,

que ya está el sol de camino.

*

Kikirikííí…

levántate labrador,

despierta con alegría, 

que viene el día.

*

Kikirikííí…

Niños del pueblo despertad con el ole,

que os esperan en el “cole”.

El pueblo no necesita reloj,

¡le vale el gallo despertador!

Gloria Fuertes. ESPAÑA

(1908 – 1998)