[LXXXIV]
Una vez más, amor, la red del día extingue
One more time, love, the net of day extinguishes
trabajos, ruedas, fuegos, estertores, adioses,
labors, wheels, fires, death rattles, goodbyes,
y a la noche entregamos el trigo vacilante
and we deliver to the night the unsteady wheat
que el mediodía obtuvo de la luz y la tierra.
that midday obtained from light and earth.
Sólo la luna en medio de su página pura
Only the moon in the middle of its pure page
sostiene las columnas del estuario del cielo,
supports the columns of the sky’s estuary,
la habitación adopta la lentitud del oro
the room adopts the sluggishness of gold
y van y van tus manos preparando la noche.
and your hands go to and fro preparing the night.
Oh amor, oh noche, oh cúpula cerrada por un río
O love, O night, O dome closed off by a river
de impenetrables aguas en la sombra del cielo
of impenetrable waters in the shadow of the sky
que destaca y sumerge sus uvas tempestuosas,
which highlights and submerges its stormy grapes,
hasta que sólo somos un solo espacio oscuro,
until we’re simply just a solitary dark space,
una copa en que cae la ceniza celeste,
a goblet in which celestial ashes fall,
una gota en el pulso de un lento y largo río.
a drop in the pulse of a lazy long river.
Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. Cien sonetos de amor
1924, Pablo Neruda y Herederos de Pablo Neruda
1994, Random House Mondadori
Cuarta edición en U.S.A: febrero 2004
[English translation by JMN.]
(c) 2020 JMN. All rights reserved
‘Business in Great Waters’
I jotted on the fly several snatches of phraseology that resonated with me today as I watched Prince Philip’s live-streamed funeral service on the BBC.
May what power that is deal graciously with those who mourn, and those who go down to the sea to occupy their business in great waters. (To the coffin:) May thy portion this day be in peace.
Strung together out of order from their hearing and with a slight periphrasis of mine, the phrases devise a hortatory reverential statement that I could imagine uttering, being myself neither practicing religionist nor monarchist.
To be honest, I tuned in for the promised trumpet fanfare. The confession I make is to a weakness for British grand ceremony. What preceded the trumpets had to be got through in order to reach the enjoyment of them.
The sacred music, admirably confined to four voices, was dominant and over-long as always. Several bars of fewer tunes would suffice.
The Dean’s unmannered reading of the text from Ecclesiastes was refreshing. I credit the British with knowing poetry is about words and not performance.
And the phrase “occupy their business in great waters” is what prompted this comment. It reminds me of how gloriously the King James translators foundered over Semitic turns in their source texts. In being literal with strangeness they forged from air the grandiose oddity of “biblical” English that even Englishmen revere.
*Image from WPA Pool/Getty Images, Mike Duff, “Prince Philip Spent His Life With Land Rovers, and This One Will Carry Him to His Funeral,” caranddriver.com, 4-16-21)
(c) 2021 JMN