#365 Year's End (Richard Wilbur)

Cuando empecé con blog ya tenía en mente terminar con este poema de Richard Wilbur que leí el año pasado. Entonces no sabía prácticamente nada de Wilbur, y apenas había leído un par de poemas. Pero este año la biblioteca de mi universidad, que es lo más parecido que he tenido a un lámpara de Aladín, ha comprado, a mi petición, la serie documental sobre Richard Wilbur, "Richard Wilbur and the Things of This World". Nueve horas y media de entrevistas a Wilbur y otros poetas sobre su vida y obra. Una gozada. Es un proyecto más bien casero. La calidad de los vídeos y la edición es más bien pobre, pero el contenido es de primera calidad y logra dar una imagen muy completa del gran poeta, impecable traductor (especialmente de Molière y Racine) y extraordinaria persona (padre, esposo, profesor, amigo) que era Richard Wilbur. 

El poeta que da título al documental es uno de mis favoritos, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World". En el documental Wilbur lee y comenta varios de sus poemas. Este, dedicado a su hija adolescente, es una maravilla: "The Writer".

El de hoy es una buena meditación para terminar el año y cerrar con puertas doradas este jardín. ¡Gracias nuevamente por la compañía!

 

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YEAR'S END

Now winter downs the dying of the year,   

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show   

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,   

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin   

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell   

And held in ice as dancers in a spell   

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;   

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,   

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns   

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone   

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown   

Composedly have made their long sojourns,   

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise   

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze   

The random hands, the loose unready eyes   

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.   

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause   

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

#364 A quien esto leyere (Javier Almuzara)

Ya mañana terminamos el año. Dejo el último día para cerrar con broche de oro y aprovecho hoy para agradecerte a ti, lector, la compañía.

Como Blogger se encarga de mantener contabilidad, puedo decir que, casi literalmente, hemos sido cuatro gatos. ¡La inmensa minoría! Ojalá pudiéramos hacer una fiesta en el Jardín, continuar "robando manzanas", recibir vuestras sugerencias para plantar nuevas flores. Quedan claros mis huecos literarios y lo poco que leo poesía "internacional" (esto es, no escrita originalmente en inglés o español). En los comentarios recibiré encantada sugerencias sobre aquellos a los que se han quedado fuera, posiblemente por ignorancia. 

Gracias, nuevamente, por la compañía y celebrémosla como celebra Almuzara a sus lectores. Cada vez que buscaba un poema para cada día, me daba la sensación de estarlo trayendo nuevamente a la vida, de despertar un poder que estaba dormido. También así lo ve Almuzara: le damos vida a lo que leemos. 

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A QUIEN ESTO LEYERE

Lector, yo no soy digno
de que entres en mis versos, 

pero una ojeada tuya
bastará a reanimarlos. 

Que no haya concebido 

en vano estas criaturas 

imperfectas depende
de otra vida: tu vida. 

Se salvaría el alma 

si en mi nombre haces tuyo 

tanto renglón torcido.
No juzgues rectamente 

sino mis buenas obras 

y acógeme en el reino 

donde más altas sombras 

comparten tus vigilias, 

que no habré levantado 

un falso testimonio
si pones mis palabras 

en tu boca. Lector, 

tuyo es todo el poder, 

mía solo la gloria. 

#363 Christmas Carol (Sara Teasdale)

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CHRISTMAS CAROL

The kings they came from out the south,

   All dressed in ermine fine;

They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,

   And gifts of precious wine.

 

The shepherds came from out the north,

   Their coats were brown and old;

They brought Him little new-born lambs—

   They had not any gold.

 

The wise men came from out the east,

   And they were wrapped in white;

The star that led them all the way

   Did glorify the night.

 

The angels came from heaven high,

   And they were clad with wings;

And lo, they brought a joyful song

   The host of heaven sings.

 

The kings they knocked upon the door,

   The wise men entered in,

The shepherds followed after them

   To hear the song begin.

 

The angels sang through all the night

   Until the rising sun,

But little Jesus fell asleep

   Before the song was done.

#362 Christ's Nativity (Henry Vaughan)

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CHRIST'S NATIVITY

Awake, glad heart! get up and sing!

It is the birth-day of thy King.

Awake! awake!

The Sun doth shake

Light from his locks, and all the way

Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Awake, awake! hark how th’ wood rings;

Winds whisper, and the busy springs

A concert make;

Awake! awake!

Man is their high-priest, and should rise

To offer up the sacrifice.

I would I were some bird, or star,

Flutt’ring in woods, or lifted far

Above this inn

And road of sin!

Then either star or bird should be

Shining or singing still to thee.

I would I had in my best part

Fit rooms for thee! or that my heart

Were so clean as

Thy manger was!

But I am all filth, and obscene;

Yet, if thou wilt, thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no more

This leper haunt and soil thy door!

Cure him, ease him,

O release him!

And let once more, by mystic birth,

The Lord of life be born in earth.

#361 Cristo adolescente (Carlos Bousoño)

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CRISTO ADOLESCENTE

Oh Jesús, te contemplo aún niño, adolescente.

Niño rubio dorándose en luz de Palestina. 

Niño que pone rubia la mañana luciente 

cuando busca los campos su mirada divina. 

En el misterio a veces hondamente se hundía

mirando las estrellas donde su Padre estaba. 

Un chorro de luz tenue al ciclo se vertía, 

al cielo inacabable que en luz se desplegaba. 

Otras veces al mundo mirabas. De la mano 

de tu Madre pasabas con gracia y alegría. 

Pasabas por los bosques como un claror liviano, 

por los bosques oscuros donde tu Cruz crecía. 

Niño junto a su Madre. Niño junto a su muerte, 

creciendo al mismo tiempo que la cruda madera. 

Me hace llorar la angustia, oh Cristo niño, al verte 

pasar por ese bosque junto a la primavera. 

#360 Star of the Nativity (Joseph Brodsky)

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STAR OF THE NATIVITY

In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than

to cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,

a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;

it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart.

To Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother’s breast, the steam

out of the ox’s nostrils, Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior—the team

of Magi, their presents heaped by the door, ajar.

He was but a dot, and a dot was the star.

Keenly, without blinking, through pallid, stray

clouds, upon the child in the manger, from far away—

from the depth of the universe, from its opposite end—the star

was looking into the cave. And that was the Father’s stare.

#359 Noel (J.R.R. Tolkien)

¡Feliz Navidad!

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NOEL

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains' teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o'er hill and dale.
The world was blind, the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O'er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven's towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven's King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.