[XCV]
¿Quiénes se amaron como nosotros? Busquemos
Who else has loved like us? Let us seek
las antiguas cenizas del corazón quemado
the ancient ashes of the burnt heart
y allí que caigan uno por uno nuestros besos
and there let our kisses fall one by one
hasta que resucite la flor deshabitada.
until the deserted flower returns to life.
Amemos el amor que consumió su fruto
Let us cherish the love that consumed its fruit
y descendió a la tierra con rostro y poderío:
and came down to earth with face and power:
tú y yo somos la luz que continúa,
you and I are the light that carries on —
su inquebrantable espiga delicada.
its delicate, unbreakable ear of grain.
Al amor sepultado por tanto tiempo frío,
To this love entombed for so much frigid time,
por nieve y primavera, por olvido y otoño,
by snow and Spring, forgetfulness and Fall,
acerquemos la luz de una nueva manzana,
let us draw close the light of a new apple,
de la frescura abierta de una nueva herida,
that of the open freshness of a new wound,
como el amor antiguo que camina en silencio
like the ancient love that walks in silence
por una eternidad de bocas enterradas.
through an eternity of buried mouths.
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 is mine.]
(c) 2020 JMN
EthicalDative 
Virago
A correspondent said she was reading a “virago book.” I said. “Is it by, or about, one?” It turns out Virago is a distinguished publishing house. As if on cue, this informative review of Lennie Goodings’s memoir appears.
Virago started up in London in 1973, with a mission to “shake the canon out of its primness and timidity, to shatter the silences around women’s lives.”
Goodings, a young Canadian, teamed with founder Carmen Callil in 1977, and found publishing to be “a fusty little industry, with men her own age braying at her, demanding coffee.”
They published Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Adrienne Rich, Grace Paley, Maya Angelou, Stevie Smith. Callil is credited with resurfacing the work of Vera Brittain, Willa Cather, Elizabeth Taylor, Rebecca West, and many others.
Anthony Burgess piggishly harrumphed in earshot of Virago about “chauvinist sows.”
The reviewer’s summation has supportive nuance:
… This deeply modest book… contains its own critique and argues against its own circumspection, deploring the feminine habits of “modesty, likability and anxiety.”
(Parul Sehgal, “When Publishing Women Was a Radical Act: A British Editor Looks Back,” NYTimes, 12-15-20)
(c) 2020 JMN