Siesta (Translation from a poem of Heredia)

Here is the original -- many thanks to Dale for the tip -- I had never heard of this poet before...

La sieste

Pas un seul bruit d'insecte ou d'abeille en maraude,
Tout dort sous les grands bois accablés de soleil
Où le feuillage épais tamise un jour pareil
Au velours sombre et doux des mousses d'émeraude.

Criblant le dôme obscur, Midi splendide y rôde
Et, sur mes cils mi-clos alanguis de sommeil,
De mille éclairs furtifs forme un réseau vermeil
Qui s'allonge et se croise à travers l'ombre chaude.

Vers la gaze de feu que trament les rayons,
Vole le frêle essaim des riches papillons
Qu'enivrent la lumière et le parfum des sèves ;

Alors mes doigts tremblants saisissent chaque fil,
Et dans les mailles d'or de ce filet subtil,
Chasseur harmonieux, j'emprisonne mes rêves.

-- José-Maria de HEREDIA (1842-1905)

...and here is my translation:



Siesta

No sound of insect or marauding bee:
Everything sleeps, under woods overwhelmed
with sunlight. Thick leaves filter the day
to softness; dark velvet among emerald mosses.

Noon rides majestic; a winnowing tray
to break down the dark dome overhead.
Thousands of light beams thread,
through lashes half-closed and heavy
with sleep, a silver-gold net, drawing
warp and weft across the heated shade.

And towards this fiery gauze woven by rays,
Drunk on the light and the smell of sap,
Flies a frail chaos of rich butterflies;

My trembling fingers take hold of the threads,
Grasp the gold stitches of the whole subtle net,
And, like a hunter of harmony, haul in my dreams.














--

The Sea Point

between the waves and the beach
we stand, calves stretched
by the fine sand's downshift
under the weight of days

the coolness is closed off
to swimmers in the shallows
releasing only algae - debris
dead from suffocation -
the fish are few
and the weed swings listless
on the weak tide

at the sea point
air and water lose their names

bodies dissolve
in the nothing of heat

forgetting






--

Climbing Roses

Not long after the jasmine died, I left
my garden to marry, before the shell-pink roses
began to climb and spread their tangled hair
over the conifers' fragrant pillow.

The willow tepee still houses green-gold light;
the rowan's roots push deep under hyacinths
near the mound for the dead; the Japanese cherry
dances its way through this year's early frost.

And yesterday, a head-high bank of pink geraniums
recalled the story of a white horse, an enigmatic
woman, a county that enfolds the heart
in deep green hills, where Roman poetry

still sounds in cider orchards; where I walked in,
still brimming with loss one midsummer evening;
where the Arab mare flicked her ears, and water
gathered in the slate lane. The other side of Devon

that I tried to grow in my garden: the garden
I left to marry, the winter the jasmine died.





--

Sea, near Beirut

The drum shifts my thought to the moon,
heart of Islam; so forbidden they hid it
in the emblem of religion itself.
I climb to the round door, and ask
What is beyond?
The world, inside out.
And to get in?
Open your eyes of fire.

Below, the sea gathers to the moonpath,
continuing the stone pier on which I stand
to an unseen city.
And on the inky surface swirl
words as yet unfixed by writing
moving on the waters;
left out of the Quran.




--

Making Eve's Pudding

I assume I'm buying apples,
I said, and you asked why, though
you knew they were the first humans.

Well, God told them they could eat
anything except the fruit
of that tree and left them to it.

What do you think happened?
They ate the fruit: Duh! mustering
All twelve years of worldliness.

The snake told Eve that the fruit
of that tree -- an apple -- would give
her knowledge of good and evil.

So she ate it, and then she got Adam
to eat some too and they realised
they were naked, suddenly: bent double,

hands inadequately cupped over breasts
and genitals. God was very cross.
What about? That knowledge was

meant to be his, not Theirs. And
you rolled your eyes at God, saying:
now, why doesn't that surprise me?




--

Exodus

Here in search
of a new-lit hearth-flame,
a radical departure,

I taste warmth
after a long winter without you:
the deep katabasis of north.

Life-jackets under our seats,
we fly over Mount Olympus;
gods skimming across snow.

The hills take in salt; give back olives:
they take the day, and yellow
flowers ooze from their pores.

Newcomers, gazes pressed
into deep-cleft valleys,
catch breath to know each other.

With ample arms unoiled
by Aphrodite beauty parlours,
the goddess is here too:

here in the sea-borne land, awash
with pine-scent: here in the sun's blush
smeared on the wine-dark sky -

here in the hotel room.
I carry you like an unborn child;
like a letter, like a message.

Like these two
smooth green pears
carry the rain.


Limassol, Cyprus
March 2009


--

Swift Run

The fat cat was a lion
Who told us, “Stay!
This is a good place
To chip poems from greenstone;
Sing where trees circle boulders;
Hear the white oak branches
Talk about the river.” He jumped
Into the car, trod the first
Valley mud onto our clothes,
And showed us to his sea-eyed,
Earth-bound helper. Later, two
Young horses blew hill-blessings
Down moist, warm noses, the tree-
Crowned spirit of the place shining,
Dissolved in their black velvet eyes.

--