Years ago I studied Spanish. I find the language beautiful. Melodic. Like a song that I dont quite understand. The unknowing gave it a sense of mystery. At that time I tried to translate Borges- the great Argentinan poet (who incidentally was blind and many people point out the oracle quality of his writing but i think he was wonderful writer who learned Shakespeare as a second language and felt the world through a finely calibrated filter of the heart. So there's that.
MANUSCRITO HALLADO EN UN LIBRO DE JOSEPH CONRAD
En las trémulas tierras que exhalan el verano, El día es invisible de puro blanco. El día
Es una estría cruel en una celosía,
Un fulgor en las costas y una fiebre en el llano.
Pero la antigua noche es honda como un jarro
De agua cóncava. El agua se abre a infinitas huellas, Y en ociosas canoas, de cara a las estrellas,
El hombre mide el vago tiempo con el cigarro.
El humo desdibuja gris las constelaciones
Remotas. Lo inmediato pierde prehistoria y nombre. El mundo es unas cuantas tiernas imprecisiones.
El río, el primer río. El hombre, el primer hombre.
El humo desdibuja gris las constelaciones
remotas. Lo inmediato pierde prehistoria y nombre.
El mundo es unas cuantas tiernas imprecisiones.
El río, el primer río. El hombre, el primer hombre.
I can not find my translation. It was pretty amateur. But saying that- for me there was an adventure, a goodness, in the quirks and dance one language to another. And trying to understand what he wanted to say- in his Argentinian Spanish, helped me be more exact with my native (Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas) English.
I could find only a paragraph of my translation: So many things are now lost over the years.
Smoke blurs gray the far away
constellations. What is immediate loses its past and is unnamed
The world is a few tender uncertainties.
River, the first river. Man, the first man.
wild horse- oil on canvas
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