untitled art, seen at chelsea market nyc. december 2009.unknown artist (meaning, i don't know who made this, but i wish i did)...
in a few days, i hop on a plane to spend a week in buenos aires. as soon as my friend z and i booked the trip a couple of months ago, i got hot to brush up on my spanish (i had 4 good years of spanish in high school, and an extra year of spanish lit in college. but that was a long time ago). i decided to follow the strategy that worked for my cousin heccy, who hadn't studied the language at all before he moved to oviedo: watch tv.
so i picked up all my tv-related remote controls and fiddled around with all the buttons--everywhere there was a language option, i changed it to spanish. it took a while for it all to work--and i'm not exactly sure how i did it, but soon enough, i was immersed in a whole new...telemundo (ha! sorry).
what did i learn? law and order is just as good in spanish, and the movie "dark water" is just as bad...i was, for a brief period of time, quite current with winter league beisbol happenings, as well as futbol and boxeo, courtesy of espn deportes. but after a while, it occured to me that night after night of "golpe a golpe" wasn't really going to get me where i needed to go in buenos aires.
i decided to try reading poetry--pablo neruda's love sonnets is the only volume i own. it's quite a nice evening, to be at home on the couch, reading his poems aloud in their intended language. it moves me even if i don't know every word perfectly--the new sounds and the rhythm still covey feeling. and my mind travels in a different way. far away?
even if you don't know all the words, see how it feels to read them out loud.
if you're not at all familar with spanish, this might not work (but perhaps it works with french? portuguese? if you give it a try, i'd love to know...)
***
Soneto LXIX por Pablo Neruda
Tal vez no ser es ser sin que tú seas,
sin que vayas cortando el mediodía
como una flor azul, sin que camines
más tarde por la niebla y los ladrillos,
sin esa luz que llevas en la mano
que tal vez otros no verán dorada,
que tal vez nadie supo que crecía
como el origen rojo de la rosa,
sin que seas, en fin, sin que vinieras
brusca, incitante, a conocer mi vida,
ráfaga de rosal, trigo del viento,
y desde entonces soy porque tú eres,
y desde entonces eres, soy y somos,
y por amor seré, serás, seremos.
Sonnet 69 by Pablo Neruda
Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,
without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.
In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:
since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.
***
Soneto XLV por Pablo Neruda
No estés lejos de mí un solo día, porque cómo,
porque, no sé decirlo, es largo el día,
y te estaré esperando como en las estaciones
cuando en alguna parte se durmieron los trenes.
No te vayas por una hora porque entonces
en esa hora se juntan las gotas del desvelo
y tal vez todo el humo que anda buscando casa
venga a matar aún mi corazón perdido.
Ay que no se quebrante tu silueta en la arena,
ay que no vuelen tus párpados en la ausencia:
no te vayas por un minuto, bienamada,
porque en ese minuto te habrás ido tan lejos
que yo cruzaré toda la tierra preguntando
si volverás o si me dejarás muriendo.
Love Sonnet XLV by Pablo Neruda
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because--
because--I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run
together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty
distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
