correspondence

She writes:“I shall be in Paris in mid-August,just a few days.Do not ask me why or what for,but be there for me one evening or two,three…Take me to the Seine,let us gaze into it until we become little fishes and recognize each other again.”

He writes:“How far away from me or how close are you,Ingeborg? Tell me,so that I know whether your eyes will be closed if I kiss you now.”

He writes nothing,she writes nothing,she writes nothing,he writes nothing,years pass between letters.We cannot know what went on between them.

He writes:“It was our first rendez-vous in Paris,my heart was beating so loudly,and you did not come.”

She writes:“I love you and I do not want to love you,it is too much and too difficult…”

He writes:“Let us no longer puzzle over what is irretrievable,Ingeborg.”

Paul Celan/Ingeborg Bachmann

la belle saison

À jeun perdue glacée
Toute seule sans un sou
Une fille de seize ans
Immobile debout
Place de la Concorde
À midi le Quinze Août

En ayunas perdida helada
Completamente sola sin un centavo
Una muchacha de dieciséis años
Inmóvil de pie
Plaza de la Concordia
A mediodía el 15 de agosto.

J.Prévert

father's old blue cardigan

Now it hangs on the back of the kitchen chair
where I always sit,as it did
on the back of the kitchen chari where he always sat.

I put it on whenever I come in,
as he did,stamping
the snow from his boots.

I put it on and sit in the dark.
He would not have done this.
Coldness comes paring down from the moonbone in the sky.

His laws were a secret.
But I remember the moment at which I knew
he was going mad inside his laws.

He was standing at the turn of the driveway when I arrived.
He had on the blue cardigan with the buttons done up all the way to the top.
Not only because it was a hot July afternoon

but the look on his face -
as a small child who has been dressed by some aunt early in the morning
for a long trip

on cold trains and windy platforms
will sit very straight at the edge of his seat
while the shadows like long fingers

over the haystacks that sweep past
keep shocking him
because he is riding backwards.

Anne Carson

(my/foolish/heart)

My soul was a light blue dress of the sky’s colour;
I left it on a rock beside the sea
and naked I came to you and resembled a woman.
And as a woman I sat at your table
and drank a bowl of wine and breathed in the scent of some roses.
You thought I was lovely and that I resembled someone you had seen in a dream,
I forgot everything,I forgot my childhood and my homeland,
I knew only that your caresses held me captive.
And smiling you took a mirror and bade me look at myself.
I saw that my shoulders were made of dust and fell apart,
I saw that my beauty was sick and had no will other than –to vanish.
O,hold me close in your arms so tightly that I need nothing.

Edith Södergran

.

Mi mujer me acompañó hasta Brest,
bajó del tren y permaneció en el andén,
fue haciéndose cada vez más pequeña
hasta que se convirtió en un grano de trigo en el azul infinito,
después ya no pude ver nada más que los raíles.

Luego,cuando llamó desde Polonia,no pude responder.
No pude preguntar:«¿Dónde estás amada mía,dónde?»
«¡Ven conmigo!»,dijo,pero no pude ir junto a ella,
el tren circulaba como si nunca fuera a detenerse
y me ahogaba la tristeza.

Luego,la nieve comenzó a disolverse sobre la tierra arenosa
y de repente me di cuenta de que mi mujer estaba mirándome
y me preguntaba:«¿me has olvidado?,¿me has olvidado?»,
la primavera caminaba por el cielo con los pies descalzos y embarrados.

Luego,las estrellas bajaron a posarse en los postes de telégrafo,
la oscuridad se abatió sobre el tren como si fuera lluvia,
mi mujer permanecía al pie de los postes de telégrafo,
su corazón latía tac tac como si estuviese en mis brazos,
los postes se acercaban y pasaban,pero ella no se movía del sitio,
el tren circulaba como si nunca fuera a detenerse
y me ahogaba la tristeza.

Luego,de repente, me di cuenta de que hace años, hace muchos años
que vivo en este tren
-pero todavía no sé cómo y por qué lo he comprendido-
y cantando con la misma fuerza y con la misma esperanza
sigo alejándome de la ciudad y de las mujeres amadas
y su nostalgia es como una herida abierta,
mientras me acerco a algún lugar,a algún lugar.

Nazim Hikmet

the treachery of hope

one memory keeps haunting me:
the day when winter died.
so much white grief.
could it be other,i thought,
with high snows all around?

you came and stayed with me for a while.
i can still feel how weary you were.
we talked about the thaw of cold hours
and the treachery of hope:

"the meadows outside-the meadows",you said,
pointing to the mountain of snow,
"the meadows of white are enchanting young
women,fast bending their steps
towards the tenements of their dreams."

but i mocked you,and how sad i made you.
"such beautiful meadows they are...";
again you spoke,forgetting what i had said.

one of you-i don't remember who-was embroidering
a tablecloth of stunning damask;
we took it and laid it over the immaculate
immensity of white.
then we dined together.

Nicolae Sirius

*

Why did you vanish
into empty sky?
Even the fragile snow
when it falls
falls in this world

Izumi Shikibu