Three Poems

Nancy Bacelo

 
 
 
 
 
Sandía, luna sandía
Cortada en cuchilla fría.

Te faltaba una cadera
En este viernes de cera.

Me faltaba la mañana
Y la vida ay me faltaba.
 
 
 
Melon, moon melon
Cut into a cold blade.

You were missing a hip
This waxen Friday.

I was missing the morning
And life oh I missed that too.
 
 
 
 
 
como si nadie oyera
más que su propia música
—olvidados del antes y del todo—
dirigiendo la orquesta
sin batuta
y desnudos
 
 
 
as if no one could hear
anything but their own music
—forgetting the before and the whole—
conducting the orchestra
with no baton
and all of them naked
 
 
 
 
 
Una mujer empieza a repensar
todo aquello que fue y ya no es
como todo el mundo sabe
que lo que sube baja y viceversa
mas sin embargo
algunas cosas suben y no bajan
y otras que bajan
nunca más vuelven a subir.
 
 
 
A woman starts rethinking
all that was and is no longer
since everyone knows
what goes up comes down and vice versa
but nevertheless
some things go up and don’t come down
and others that go down
never come back up.
 
 
Translated by Catherine Jagoe

Nancy Bacelo (1931-2007) was an Uruguayan poet, author of over a dozen collections of poetry including Tránsito de fuego, Círculo nocturno and Los símbolos precisos. She was the founder and publisher of the important poetry magazine and press Siete Poetas Hispanoamericanos. Her poetry is preserved and her  work continued by the Foundation Nancy Bacelo in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Catherine Jagoe is a poet, essayist and ATA certified Spanish<>English translator. Her translations of contemporary Uruguayan poets have recently appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Drunken Boat and in the anthology América Invertida. She has also translated two novels, from 19th-century Spain and 20th-century Argentina. She won a 2015 Pushcart Prize for creative nonfiction and three other awards for her 2016 poetry book Bloodroot.