me and pablo in corsica
I have been working on a translation of Federico Garcia Lorca's El nino mudo, what I am loosely translating as The voiceless boy. On doing some research on Federico I discovered that in 1933 he met Pablo Neruda in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Later, in Madrid, 1934, he introduced Neruda with these words, "I say you are about to hear an authentic poet, one who has forged himself in a world that's not ours, that few people perceive. A poet closer to death than philosophy, to pain than intellect, to blood than ink. A poet filled with mysterious voices that luckily he himself doesn't know the meaning of. A true man who does know that the reed and the swallow are more permanent than the hard cheek on a statue … He stands up to the world, full of honest terror, and lacks two things so many false poets have lived with-hate and irony. When he's about to condemn and raises his sword, suddenly he finds himself with a wounded dove between his fingers." (copied from World Poetry)
Having said that, the poem I present here is all Federico's. It was written in a jaunty, care-free manner, what he once referred to as his ditty stage of writing.
The Little Voiceless Boy
The little boy searched for his voice.
(The emperor of all the crickets had stole it.)
In a water drop
the little boy searched for his voice.
I do not want your voice for speaking with;
I will make a ring out of it
so that you may wear my silence
on your little finger.
In a water drop
the little boy searched for his voice.
(The kidnapped voice, far away,
was donning cricket’s clothing.)El Nino Mudo
El niño busca su voz.
(La tenía el rey de los grillos.)
En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.
No la quiero para hablar;
me haré con ella un anillo
que llevará mi silencio
en su dedo pequeñito.
En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.
(La voz cautiva, a lo lejos,
se ponía un traje de grillo.)
The song is more of a dirge than a celebration. Change is happening in my life and that is always painful on some levels. Plus, there is more than enough sorrow in the world to warrant one more sad song, I think Pablo wouldn't care for the noise I pass off as jazz but he would understand a lament in any form. What surprises me isn't that a photograph survived of my trip to Corsica but that I once let my hair grow that shaggy. What a mop!