The Spanish text I translate to English here is from Las palabras de Javier (November 16, 2023).

In reading poetry of the day I brace for being left in the lurch, for being denied more than a cerebral engagement, at best, with what the verses purport to voice, the correlative they model or invoke. Now and then, however, a text helps me feel a feeling, as these lines by Javier Sánchez do. The internal accusative pounces unstalked. It’s a hurt that punctures numbness, not unsweet, but eye-watering, too, like a stitch in the side or twitch of a dormant muscle. How and why a given text springs an art attack is anybody’s guess. Javier writes Spanish that is taut, tuneful and pointed, the essence of poetic. My English can only shadow it.

WHEN I GO AWAY by Javier Sánchez

When I go away, I’ll leave you the exact letters for you to create a pretty poem.

When I go away, I’ll leave my memories in back of the painting in the house’s dining room.

When I go away, I’ll depart with fear for what I leave behind, and for whom, but not with fear of where I’m going. I know already where I’m going.

And we will see each other again.

From the verb conocer — to know someone.

But don’t be in a rush, life of mine, do not hurry. You’ll see that one summer day I’ll be out there, sitting at the door of the painter’s house on Angel Street, where you used to play when little.

You’ll see me, and without hesitation you’ll read me the poem you’ve written with the letters I gave you before my departure. That towheaded little boy will read with you, line by line, the pretty poem.

That will be when we smile, the two of us, again.

***

Postscript: In reading “When I Go Away” I felt distant vibes from a poem in an old anthology read me by my mother when I was a cotton-top brat myself. It was “Little Boy Blue” by Eugene Field.

(c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved