Amalia Iglesias Serna — part 2
Here are two more translations. These are my first attempts at working on the poetry from Amalia Iglesias Serna's Dados y Dudas (1996). Mistakes will be made by me. However, if someone, somewhere, reads my crude attempts and is able to help bring these poems into English with the same beauty I find in their original language then I will feel I have done a good thing. Until I am able to correct my errors as I go along, thank you for your patience and, please, enjoy.
Y cuántas veces
aquella misma sensación de arcilla
aferrada a mis pies,
el tacto de sus manos
entre soga y diadema.En el centro del frío
todo fue tiento alrededor,
la vida suspendida en su cedazo de nieve.Aquella niña atrapada en el paisaje
me mira todavía
desde la espesura del espejo.
And how many times
that same sensation from the obstinate clay
on my feet,
the concern of her hands
between rope and crown.In the center of the coldness
everything is touched around,
life suspended in her sieve of snow.That girl caught in the landscape
still looking at me
from the depth of the mirror.
I do believe when I was first going through the book it was this poem with reference to Lake Michigan winter that drew me to it. Now a note on my translations. In the original she writes about "kilómetros," and I have changed it to "miles." I have mixed feelings about this … and it was mainly because kilometers doesn't roll off the tongue for me (as a gringo) when I read it out loud. But, if others feel I have sacrificed the spirit of the poem, I will gladly repair any damages. Regardless, thank you, Amalia, for this poem.
Desde el piso diecinueve de un rascacielos
el lago Michigan helado, lápida de cristal,
un blues para la noche desde arriba.
Pensar si no habré muerto a miles de kilómetros
y el purgatorio sean diez grados bajo cero,
esos puentes alzados como cruces
o esta soledad de nieve contra el rostro.From the nineteenth floor of a skyscraper
frozen Lake Michigan, a crystal tablet,
a blues for the night from above.
To think that I have not died for these thousands of miles
and purgatory is ten degrees below zero,
those raised bridges like crossings
or this solitude, snow against my face.