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Napowrimo

#1 – Siesta

Well, here we go again. Napowrimo poem #1 for 2006 is a ‘translation’ of a poem by Antonio Machado. I don’t speak Spanish (I was working with a prose translation and a dictionary), I haven’t attempted to maintain rhyme or metre, and I’ve allowed myself a degree of freedom. I’m by no means convinced by the result, but it was interesting to do. Here’s the original:

Siesta
En Memoria de Abel Martín

Mientras traza su curva el pez de fuego
junto al ciprés, bajo el supremo añil,
y vuela en blanca piedra el niño ciego,
y en el olmo la copla de marfil
de la verde cigarra late y suena,
honremos al Señor
– la negra estampa de su mano buena –
que ha dictado el silencio en el clamor.

Al Dios de la distancia y de la ausencia,
del áncora en la mar, la plena mar …
Él nos libra del mundo – omnipresencia –,
nos abre sendar para caminar.

Con la copa de sombra bien colmada,
con este nunca lleno corazón,
honremos al Señor que hizo la Nada
y ha esculpido en la fe nuestra razón.

And here’s my version:

Siesta

In memory of Abel Martín

While the burning fish carves its arc
beside the cypress, under the utmost indigo,
and the blind boy fades into the bleached stone,
and in the elm the green cicada’s bone-white song
rolls and throbs,
let us give honour to the Lord
– the dark incisions of his good hand –
that ordered silence in the tumult.

To the God of distance and absence,
of the anchor in the open sea…
He releases us from the world – is everywhere –
opens to us a path to walk.

With a glass brimful of shadow,
with this never-full heart,
let us honour the Lord who made Nothing
and whittled our reason out of faith.

Categories
Culture Nature

Sparrowhawk

I was absently looking out the window and realised that a bit of a kerfuffle was a sparrowhawk taking one of the pigeons. Female this time, so she’s bigger and browner than the last s/hawk in the garden. By the time I had my scope and camera ready, she dragged the pigeon behind a bush, so she was obcured and the light wasn’t great. But at least the photo is good enough to show she was there.

The cat scared her away before she’d finished, and the pigeon flew away too, so there’s a partially plucked pigeon out there somewhere. A pigeon is quite large prey for a sparrowhawk, which is presumably why she didn’t take it very far.