https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
 http://offcourse.org
 ISSN 1556-4975

OffCourse Literary Journal

A journal for poetry, criticism, reviews, stories and essays published by Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg since 1998.


 

A New Poem by Carlos Barbarito, Translated by Ricardo Nirenberg

Y de mí qué se embarca, qué ruta emprende…

…It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age…

Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific


Y de mí qué se embarca, qué ruta emprende;
de mi mano, torpe música ciega
y una herida en el aire que exhalo.
Ignoro el pasado y el porvenir de la estrella,
qué se oculta bajo la tierra que piso,
por qué lo que se busca queda siempre del otro lado.
Estoy solo. Estás sola.
El perro acude y nos lame las manos.
¿Acude o se trata de un sueño?
Dejo una marca en la madera.
Ésta, con la punta del cuchillo.
¿Dejo una marca o lo sueño?
Sí, hablábamos de remotas constelaciones,
de súbitos prodigios, de lluvias extrañas;
pero sobrevino el silencio y fue espeso,
se hizo la tiniebla en pleno día
y ya no hubo razón para rarezas y milagros.
Y no pudimos vestirnos.
Y no pudimos desnudarnos.

 


 

What part of me departs

…It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age…

Robert Frost, Once by the Pacific


What part of me departs, and to what port;
blind, clumsy music off my hand
and a wound in the air I breathe out.
The star’s past I don’t know, nor its fate,
or what hides under the ground I tread,
nor why our aim ever lies on the other side.
I’m alone.  You’re alone.
The dog comes, licks our hands.
Does it come, is it a dream?
I make a notch in the wood.
Here, with the tip of the knife.
Is it a notch, is it a dream?
Yes, we were talking of remote constellations,
of sudden miracles, strange rains;
then, thick, silence sunk in,
darkness was made in midday
and all occasion ceased for the strange or the marvelous.
And we couldn’t get dressed.
And we couldn’t strip naked.

 


Carlos Barbarito is a poet and artist living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His new book, Cenizas del Mediodía is available at http://www.editorialpraxis.com . His poems, with translations by Nirenberg, have appeared several times in Offcourse, most recently in Issue #55. A collection of the poems with Nirenberg's translations also appears in one of Barbarito's blogs.
Ricardo Nirenberg is the editor of Offcourse



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