Four Poems

Ida Vitale

Nombre en el viento

 
 
Busca ese nombre y se le esconde
en el orden del diccionario.
Olió la hoja y su recuerdo,
saltó la palabra a sus labios
y las letras danzaron,
unidas por un instante
antes de volver a ser libres.
El misterio escapó vuelto aire
en la increíble fragilidad del tiempo,
hacia aquel patio,
el sitio verde de la infancia,
un instante en la historia
de una casa
y ésta en la de un país.
Un coágulo agreste
cuyos cimientos pocos ya
conocen, aman.
 
 
 

Name in the Wind

 
Someone searches for that name but it’s hidden
in the dictionary’s order.
Someone breathed in the leaf and its memory,
the word jumped to lips
and the letters danced,
brought together for an instant
before being freed once more.
Mystery escaped turned to air
in time’s unbelievable fragility,
toward that courtyard,
the green space of childhood,
an instant in the history
of a house
and the latter in a country’s.
A rugged clot
whose foundations now only few
know, love.
 
 
 
 

Proteo

 
Lo veraz es el cambio,
el meduseo Proteo,
lo amado y desamado
sin maniatadas lógicas,
la absurda zambullida
en lo remoto y ciego,
la senda del desastre
que te ha tentado siempre
a avanzar por lo oscuro
de una nunca visto bosque
de árboles inhumanos.
La vida te ha ofrecido
imprevistas derivas,
el riesgo de excavar
topo, túneles nuevos.
 
Pero la luz acecha
aun para lo enterrado.
Insiste en dar con ella.
 
 
 

Proteus

 
What’s true is change,
the Medusan Proteus,
what’s loved and no longer loved
without logic hamstrung,
the absurd plunging
into what’s remote and blind,
disaster’s path
that has always tempted you
to move onward through the dark
of a never seen forest
of inhuman trees.
Life has offered you
unexpected driftings
the threat of burrowing
mole, new tunnels.
 
Still the light lies in wait
even for what’s buried.
Insist on stumbling upon it.
 
 
 
 

Hojas naturales

…o el arraigo, escribir en un espacio idéntico siempre, casa o desvío
                                 —José M. Algaba
 
Arrastro por los cambios un lápiz,
una hoja, tan solo de papel, que quisiera
como de árbol, vivaz y renaciente,
que destilase savia y no inútil tristeza
y no fragilidad, disoluciones;
una hoja que fuese alucinada, autónoma,
capaz de iluminarme, llevándome
al pasado por una ruta honesta: abiertas
las paredes cegadas y limpia
la historia verdadera de las pintarrajeadas
artimañas que triunfan.
Hoja y lápiz, para un oído limpio,
curioso y desconfiado.
 
 
 

Natural Leaves

…or to take root, writing in an identical space always, home or adrift
                                 —José M. Algaba
 
Along the changes I drag a pencil,
a leaf, just of paper, but that I’d like
instead from a tree, vigorous and renascent,
trickling sap, not unusable sadness
not fragility, dissolutions;
a leaf amazed, autonomous,
able to enlighten me, taking me back
to the past down an honest path, open
the blinded walls and clean
the true history of triumphant dirty tricks
all smudged.
Leaf and pencil, for an ear that’s clean,
curious, and careful.
 
 
 
 

Accidentes nocturnos

Palabras minuciosas, si te acuestas
te comunican sus preocupaciones.
Los árboles y el viento te argumentan
juntos diciéndote lo irrefutable
y hasta es posible que aparezca un grillo
que en medio del desvelo de tu noche
cante para indicarte tus errores.
Si cae un aguacero, va a decirte
cosas finas, que punzan y te dejan
el alma, ay, como un alfiletero.
Solo abrirte a la música te salva:
ella, la necesaria, te remite
un poco menos árida a la almohada,
suave delfín dispuesto a acompañarte,
lejos de agobios y reconvenciones,
entre los raros mapas de la noche.
Juega a acertar las sílabas precisas
que suenen como notas, como gloria,
que acepte ella para que te acunen,
y suplan los destrozos de los días.
 
 
 

Night Accidents

Meticulous words, if you go to bed
they inform you of their worries.
The trees and wind together make
their case telling you what’s indisputable
and it’s even likely a cricket shows up
in the middle of your night’s wakefulness
singing to point out your mistakes.
If there’s a downpour, it will tell you
fancy things to prick you and leave your
soul, oh, like a pincushion.
Only opening to music saves:
she, so necessary, sends you
a little less arid to the pillow,
soft dolphin eager to keep you company,
far from burdens and reprimands,
in the strange maps of night.
Play at getting just the right syllables
to sound like notes, like glory,
let her accept so they’ll gently rock you,
and make good on the damages of the day.
 
 
Translated by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

Ida Vitale is a poet, essayist, critic, translator, and literature professor. She is the author of more than thirty books, among which poetry prevails. She was forced into exile in 1974, lived in Venezuela and Mexico until 1984, and since 1989 has been residing in Austin, Texas. She has received numerous literary honors, including Uruguay’s National Poetry Prize, the Octavio Paz and the Alfonso Reyes Prizes in Mexico, and the Reina Sofía Prize for Iberoamerican Poetry in Spain.

Katherine M. Hedeen’s latest book-length translations include night badly written (Action Books) and tasks (coimpress) by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, and Nothing Out of This World, an anthology of contemporary Cuban poetry. She is the Poetry Translation Editor for the Kenyon Review and a two-time recipient of a NEA Translation Project Grant. She teaches Spanish and Literary Translation at Kenyon College.

Víctor Rodríguez Núñez is a poet, journalist, literary critic, translator, and scholar. He has published fifty books of poetry throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and his work has   long been the recipient of major awards in the Spanish-speaking world, most recently, Spain’s coveted Loewe Poetry Prize. One of Cuba’s most outstanding contemporary writers, he divides his time between Gambier, Ohio, where he is Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, and Havana.