[C]
En medio de la tierra apartaré
In the midst of the earth I will separate
las esmeraldas para divisarte
the emeralds in order to spot you,
y tú estarás copiando las espigas
and you will be copying the ears of grain
con una pluma de agua mensajera.
with a pen of messengering water.
¡Qué mundo! ¡Qué profundo perejil!
What a world! What a profound adornment!
¡Qué nave navegando en la dulzura!
What a boat sailing in sweetness!
¡Y tú tal vez y yo tal vez topacio!
And you perhaps and I perhaps topaz!
Ya no habrá división en las campanas.
There will no longer be division in the bells.
Ya no habrá sino todo el aire libre,
There will be nothing but the open air,
las manzanas llevadas por el viento,
the apples carried by the wind,
el suculento libro en la enramada,
the succulent book in the arbor,
y allí donde respiran los claveles
and there where the carnations breathe
fundaremos un traje que resista
we will make a suit that holds up
la eternidad de un beso victorioso.
to the eternity of a triumphant kiss.
(Pablo Neruda. English translation by JMN)
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
(c) 2020 JMN
Cat of Many Names
This article reports a sad event, the snatching of a family dog by a mountain lion.
That misfortune notwithstanding, it solves a longstanding puzzle for me by clarifying that mountain lions, pumas, cougars, panthers, and catamounts are the same animal, i.e. different names for the same large cat.
Mountain lions (Puma concolor) are a large cat species native to the Americas, with a range stretching from Canada’s Yukon Territory to the Strait of Magellan in the south. In the U.S., they are mostly found in 14 western states, inhabiting environments including mountains, forests, deserts and wetlands.
This has led me to reflect on an opposite problem I’ve had with Spanish, which is the paucity of its lexicon for “elk” and “moose”; both are called “alce.” It does, however, distinguish “caribou” as “caribú.”
(Aristos Georgious, “Mountain Lion Snatches Family Dog As They Sat in Idaho Hot Spring,” Newsweek, 11-11-20)
(c) 2020 JMN