Elegy to death #1³⁰

Between what we say and do not say
between an unfinished coffee and untold stories
my homeless sorrows saunter³¹ 
hidden in the dunes³² 
of joyful sorrows
 
Violet winds
veil your face
overcast by a thousand memories
I will never relinquish
 
The symphony of static noises
into which you, oh free, multi-coloured, dancing, flying bird, slipped
vanishes forever
into the icebox of your eternal fire
 
Your plants weep the moisture you bring fresh from the sea³³
Your furniture the weight of your body enlivened by the sun
 
And I, the absence of your company

³⁰ A more traditional poet might have written a sonnet on this theme, but Gloria Macher’s strength is free verse. Her compilation contains two such elegies to death, one more confrontational, evidently aimed at an enemy, and this one of sorrow at a friend’s passing.
³¹ There was a rich choice of synonyms to select from in translating desamparadas: helpless, defenceless, abandoned, unsheltered, since amparo signifies refuge.  Homeless struck me as the apt choice since the sorrows, homeless, are wandering…
³² For sepultadas en el desierto I opted for a more concrete, albeit figurative, image: hidden in the dunes, but ‘buried in the desert’ might also have worked.
³³ This line had me stumped for a bit.  I managed to make sense of it… the clue being in the two paradoxical statements that follow, giving this poem a mystical finale, with its flavour of medieval love poetry in the tradition of the Troubadours, or trovadores.  Some argue that medieval love poetry imported this style from the Middle East via Arabic ghazals, originally from Persia.  If you have read any ghazals, you will see why.  But, the Bible’s Song of Songs is another rich source of such mystical lyricism!

Elegía a la muerte #1

Entre la distancia de lo dicho y no dicho
entre el café no tomado y las historias no contadas
se pasean mis penas desamparadas
sepultadas en el desierto
de las tristes alegrías

Los vientos morados
cubren tu rostro
postrado en los miles recuerdos
que nunca abandonaré

La sinfonía de ruidos inertes
en la cuál caíste ave libre, voladora, de miles colores y bailes
se eclipsa para siempre
en el frío de tu calor eterno

Las plantas lloran el agua cargada de tu olor fresco de mar
Los muebles la falta de tu cuerpo avivado por el sol

Y yo, la compañía de tu ausencia