Thursday, January 12, 2006

'Gacela of the Dark Death'


....a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca
.......translated by FossilGuy, 1982
..........photo by daughter Kelly; Italy, 2005


I want to still the dreams of the apples,
to remove them from the tumult of the graveyards.
I want to quiet the dream of that child
who would cast away the sea of his heart.

I have no wish to keep hearing that the dead do not
forfeit their blood;
that the corrupted mouth continues to beg for water.
I no lnger wish to teach of the martyrdoms of the grass,
nor of the devil-mouthed moon
that labours to the break of day.

I want to rest for a moment,
a moment, a minute, a hundred years;
but let all be assured that I am not dead;
that there is a stable of gold between my lips;
that I am the humble comrade of the Westwind;
that I am the infinite shadow of my own tears.

Hide me from the dawn behind a curtain,
while I throw off these handfuls of ants,
and moisten the roughness of my shoes with water
that the scorpion's pincers will find no purchase.

For I want to still the dreams of the apples
and learn a weeping that will cleanse me of earth;
for I would abide with that dark child
who would cast away the sea of his heart.
Comments:
Another lovely one. I would think that the 5 credits wouldn't be all that easy to get since you didn't know Spanish and you were going back and forth between the poem and the dictionary! Sounds like work to me!
 
Actually, it was tons o' fun! Like getting 'hooked' on crossword or jigsaw puzzles. And I did the translations a few years before I concocted the 5-credit course. I was pondering ways to scrape together the last ten credits I needed for my ATA degree from Olympic College (35 years between the first and last classes) and thought, "I need some way to cash in on those old Lorca translations." For the other five credits, I invented a contract course on 'interpersonal communications' for Deitz.
 
I just LOVE these.
You are, as I continue to say,
my main man among men.
bs
 
Brown Shoes,
Thank you for the compliment! I have two translations left and don't know where one of them is.
 
also fabulous...
 
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