from Jardin cerrado // Enclosed Garden

 

by Emilio Prados

 

translated by Donald Wellman

 

 

 

 

XVII

PÁGINA FIEL

Nostalgia

 

 

Lejano mar, ¿conoces tu misterio?...

Sobre tu playa, el sueño

diminuto de un hombre,

no se queda olvidado,

como en el alma el pensamiento

–pétalo, sol, y nácar–,

en la espalda del tiempo.

 

...Lejano mar:

sobre tu arena está mi cuerpo,

sobre la sombra de su cuerpo,

y sueña, sueña, sueña en ti dormido,

que sin ti vive como estoy despierto,

con la frente en el agua y los ojos sedientos,

viviendo el mar, mi sangre, en tu recuerdo.

 

 

 XVII

TRUE PAGE

Nostalgia

 

 

Distant sea, do you know your mystery?...

Upon your beach, the small

dream of a man

does not leave itself to be forgotten,

like thought in the soul

–petal, sun, and pearl–,

on the shoulder of time.

 

...Distant sea:

my body lies upon your sand,

upon the shadow of its body,

and it dreams, dreams, dreams asleep in you,

that it lives without you when I am awake,

with my brow in the water and eyes thirsting,

the living sea, my blood, remembering you.

 

 

 

 

XVIII

VELA

 

 

Arriba un ala del cielo...

(¿Está alerta, centinela?)

Abajo un ala del cielo...

 

Viento, no empujes la sombra,

que tengo a mis pies el agua

y sé que el tiempo la ronda.

 

¡Está alerta, centinela!

 

 

XVIII

NIGHTWATCH

 

 

Above a wing of the sky...

(Is the sentinel awake?)

Below a wing of the sky...

 

Wind, do not push the shadow,

I have water at my feet

and I know that time keeps watch.

 

Is the sentinel awake!

 

 

 

 

XIX

EN LA MEDIA NOCHE

 

 

Hubiera preferido, nacer

con los ojos quemados

por la luz del desierto

anterior a mi sangre,

que no ver hoy mi vista

igual que lágrimas culpables,

gota tras gota, estéril,

perderse bajo tierra

igual que trigo muerto,

porque no es justo acariciar lo que se ama.

 

Hubiera preferido, nacer

con los labios fundidos,

como las aguas

que nunca han de brotar

y profundas se mezclan

al corazón oscuro de la sombra,

a no sentir mis besos

bajo el olvido deshacerse

y esconder perseguidos

el ardor de su carne,

entre las hojas del recuerdo,

porque no es justo acariciar lo que se ama.

 

Hubiera preferido, nacer

tras el vacío superior

de la Nada: en su sueño,

bajo el ancho misterio

de la campana silenciosa

y densa de su espacio,

a no sentir la flor del azahar

como una herida incandescente

en el hueso del alma,

y ver la roja fruta

del naranjo, en sazón,

amarga sobre el suelo

frente al lucero que tapado la mira,

porque no es justo acariciar lo que se ama.

 

Hubiera preferido, nacer

a espaldas de la muerte,

bajo ese enorme mar ilimitado,

donde sólo la forma

de un caracol de sal

recoge como un eco

en su concha, la angustia

sin tejer, de la espuma,

a no sentir, cómo el ala del pájaro

sin cantar, sobre el árbol se deshace;

mientras mi oído sobre el agua

sólo escucha a los peces

en su sonámbulo vagar

entre las ondas,

porque no es justo acariciar lo que se ama.

 

Porque no es justo acariciar lo que se ama:

duermo y duermo, ya siempre

con los ojos abiertos,

como la luna nace

sin saber si ya es beso de la sombra

la luz de su cuchilla,

o es sólo su reflejo de oro

nueva herida en el cielo,

con la que ha de salvar

la noche misma en la que duerme.

 

 

XIX

AT MIDNIGHT

 

 

I would have preferred, to be born

with eyes burnt

by desert light

from before my birth,

than to see my face now

with guilty tears,

that drop by drop, sterile,

lose themselves in the dirt

like dead wheat,

for it isn’t allowed to caress what is loved.

 

I would have preferred, to be born

with fused lips.

like the waters

that will never burst forth

and mix themselves deep within

the unlit heart of darkness,

than not to feel my kisses

decompose within oblivion

and hide pursued

the ardor of their flesh,

between leaves of memory,

for it isn’t allowed to caress what is loved.

 

I would have preferred, to be born

at the back of the high emptiness

of Nothing: within its dream,

under the wide mystery

of the silent

and solid bell of its space,

than not to sense the orange blossom

like an incandescent wound

in the core of the soul,

and see the red fruit

of the orange tree, in season,

bitter upon the ground

turned toward the masked star that stares at it,

for it isn’t allowed to caress what is loved.

 

I would have preferred, to be born

with my back to death,

under that enormous ocean without limits,

where only the shape

of a snail of salt

gathers like an echo

in its shell the unwoven

anguish of the foam,

than not to feel how the wing of the bird

without song undoes itself in the treetop;

while my ear upon the water

hears only the fish

in their wandering sleepwalk

among the waves,

for it isn’t allowed to caress what is loved.

 

For it isn’t allowed to caress what is loved:

I sleep and sleep, once and for all

with eyes open,

just like the moon is born

without knowing if the kiss of the dark

is really the glint of its knife,

or if its golden reflection is only

a new wound in the sky,

with which it has to save

the very night in which it sleeps.

 

 

 

 

XXI

MITAD DE LA VIDA

 

 

Como al nacer se brota de la muerte,

como del fondo de un olvido

sube lento el recuerdo

a su destino ilustre;

igual que una burbuja

del aire bajo el agua,

dejo elevar mi cuerpo hasta mi frente.

 

Salgo a pisar el cumbre de mi vida,

con idéntico afán que el hombre lleva

cuando para sentir más cerca el sol,

asciende hasta tocar

en su más alta espuma,

la ceniza traidora

y fría de los hielos.

 

Sobre mi piel estoy: sobre la tierra.

Acaso un sueño

bajo la noche me ha dejado,

como el despojo de un navío perdido

o la rosa profunda

arrancada del mar

tras su batalla oscura, silenciosa,

o, el cansancio de un pez

sonámbulo, vencido.

 

He llegado de un mar,

pero no desde un sueño...

Salgo a pisar el cumbre de mi vida.

Estoy de nuevo aquí sobre la tierra

y aún mi vista no es clara;

pero en la misma arena

siento, como mi antigua sombra,

la misma soledad, igual silencio.

 

¿He llegado de un mar?...

¿He llegado de un sueño?...

Del fondo de mi sangre

voy subiendo despacio,

de su arcano inseguro,

y, empiezo a despertar de nuevo

en mitad de mi vida,

como al nacer se brota de la muerte.

 

 

XXI

MIDDLE OF LIFE

 

 

As at birth one springs from death,

as from the depths of forgetfulness

memory slowly rises

toward its shining destiny;

just like a bubble

of air under the water,

I let my body rise toward my face.

 

I step out upon the pinnacle of my life,

with the same yearning that man brings

when in order to feel a bit closer to the sun,

he rises until touching

at its most elevated froth,

the traitorous ash,

cold with frost.

 

I am on top of my skin, on top of the earth.

Maybe a dream

has left me under the night

like the spoils of a lost ship

or the deep rose

torn from the sea

after its dark battle, silent,

or, the weariness of a fish

sleepwalking, overcome..

 

I arrived from a sea,

but not from a dream...

Off I go to attain the pinnacle of my life.

Once more I am here on top of the earth

and my vision is not yet clear;

still in the same sand

I sense, like my old shadow,

the same solitude, similar silence.

 

Have I come from a sea?...

Have I come from a dream?...

From the depth of my blood

I am rising slowly

from its arcane insecurity

and I begin to awaken once more

in the middle of my life,

just as at birth one springs from death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1937, Edna Saint Vincent Millay published her translation of a poem by Emilio Prados, “The Arrival (To Garcia Lorca)” in Spain Sings.  Since the period of the Spanish Civil War, little attention has been paid to his work by readers of English.  In Spain he is thought to be next to Garcia Lorca with respect to the depth of his song.  In the years before the Spanish Civil War, working with Manuel Altolaguirre, Prados established the press Litoral which is deeply associated with the many authors of the Generation of 1927: Lorca, Cernuda, Aleixandre, to name only a few.  Prados died in exile in Mexico in 1962.  Jardín cerrado // Enclosed Garden reflects the loss of homeland and a beautiful gentleness of spirit.  These poems are from Book III, “Thresholds of Sorrow;” Part I, “Human Night.”   

 

Donald Wellman’s poetry includes A North Atlantic Wall and The Cranberry Island Series from Dos Madres Press.  In 2009, his Prolog Pages was published by Ahadada.  From 1981-1994, he edited the O.ARS series of anthologies, devoted to topics bearing on postmodern poetics, including volumes entitled Coherence and Translations: Experiments in Reading.  In addition to the poetry of Emilio Prados, he has translated works by Antonio Gamoneda (Cervantes Prize 2006), Blaise Cendrars and Yvan Goll.  His translation of Gamoneda’s Gravestones is available from the University of New Orleans Press.  Enclosed Garden is forthcoming from Dialogos.