Tu mi feriste, Amor: di te mi fido

LORENZO DI MEDICI


Like the benign bird that breaks the breast
to drink from it the blood of its brood,
my life, too, is laid open as food
for you to partake of it the best.

Beseeching rivers flow to the table blest
of the feast of generosity thirsting crude,
which, when not your gaze, its pools of quietude,
is claimed by the gauziness of my unrest.

And under the sun my blood is bright
calling your name at every flash, and my heart
drains me dry with sips while ardour is alight

on the two open lips of my wound,
where, if you do not come to drink, all life will depart
and if you should come, all life will be returned.

(From Sonets a Eurídice (Sonnets to Eurydice), 1967)

* * *

The Prodigal Son Accepts his Guilt

No. Alone I left and alone I must return.
(From these I once fled; from others I flee now.)
I want no one to accompany me or wait for me.
The feud I must resolve with myself. It is no fault
of yours if you are the same through and through.
The one who is different am I: the fault is mine alone.
I do not reprove any one of you: not even you, father,
who cries and laughs over that sorrow,
or you, conformist brother, who has the keys of the house
and fears for the well-being of the estate.

I was
completely mad, lord only of my dream.
I had no more than that. I thus protected it
with icy flesh and spirit prepared.
Through high fields and hills, happy I saw it grow;
a stream it was, flowing from the highest peak:
like a winged heartbeat, on the breeze it came,
it came and it remained, fearful, in my arms.
I told you of it sometimes. But you didn't hear.
All of life, vast, full of lights and shadows,
throbbing with promises, questions that reveal
there, at its heart, finished answers,
the whole universe alive and things so docile,
for you it was all no more than having a house,
your meals assured and company in bed.

I fled from this. I left to give flesh to my dream
though the finished answer was full of doubt.
Yet perhaps you are right. Out there was
the world, the same as here, pure and simple life:
no one knew anything either, and I left behind
martyred flesh because of that blindness,
and also tatters of my soul. I have returned the poorer.

How will I speak to you if I don't know what to say,
mother, father, brothers, friends, oh safe and happy people,
of what bears me off and brings me back, tempted to my entrails
and promising no more than infinite silence?
Leave me alone until the silence buds.
If it is enough for you to have lived with me a piece of life,
with all my mesh of loves and armouring thick
that now lets only fuss and bother through,
do not plead either for me or against.
Move aside, brothers: my grievance is not with you.

(From El fill pròdig (The Prodigal Son), 1970)

* * *

Illustrious Son

Do not say that I was the poet of lyrics
who lengthily bemoaned his fate in well-scanned verse
then, tired of waiting, won only oblivion's curse
that spares him now these possible panegyrics.

Praise me judiciously and observing the forms
accepting the well-tailored poem as reward,
when I am dead and buried, your pardon you'll afford
since you are made to the truth of well-pondered norms.

Do not explore the root where solitude is grown
sucking the sap from the poem: with words you think
everybody shares, give it a name that is known.

The clear perspective of right paths is your guide:
do not solve the stout enigma the chain would hide;
just entertain yourselves by counting every link.

(From Sonets alexandrins (Alexandrine Sonnets), 1981)

* * *

HARANGUE

My country, oh my people! You smile and listen to me
and sit at my side inviting me to drink,
Pep the Mattress Maker, Toni the Fair, bitter folk
who sometimes cry because of life's hurts,
Guillem, Biel (oh you, my Biel, how soon
you saw you were set upon by the bulldogs of order!)
and you who cries at the end or otherwise insults me
and you who calls me sir and perhaps despises me …
I should prefer to write of you,
at the bar in a bar and around the last drink,
longings, sentimental surfeits, words
of a moment, too beautiful for anyone to remember.
But my voice is filled with this whole world full of men:
they push me to speak, and silence me – what do they seek?

Some day you will find yourselves ruled by a guard;
do not take me as example then, nor those who made me
in their image – despite my culture
(I know who Dante was), notwithstanding the porcelain pieces
(I understand the thousands the broken item was worth),
regardless of the concerts and lyrical poems
(oh the deep-rooted echoes of every word!),
and although pure mathematics does credit to my sense
(my understanding threads grains of abstract pride),
in spite of the golden rule, or facts and names and
so many exemplary things that I have contributed to life!

The game has turned against us and we've lost.
No need to get upset or go into shock; the loser pays.
They have taught me never to ask for pity.
I come to tell you only that I’m off and with me come
my own, those who have been mine, like it or not.
(There's almost no need to do anything to bring it all to an end.)
You will stay behind and the avant-garde is yours.
Do not tell me, generously, that I am getting there and must work hard.
I cannot get there: I have remained too much outside
of this circle, so preordained, of old commitment.
I am leaving with my own, those who still laugh, victims
of a time so short that no one wants to believe it:
I like to be loyal to the poor things who gave me
all their poverty –and they believed it was wealth!
After all, they also had, like you,
a body unfulfilled, although they would not say,
and troubles deep in their hearts, and some – it is worth pointing out – a shadow of remorse that kept them apart
from the herd … But do I have to tell you all the story?
If you would not listen, if it bothered you
more than helped you. No. Leave without thinking twice.
You are now the peoples and the gods. Off you go: earn it!

(From Terra negra (Black Land), 1970)

Translated from the Catalan by Julie Wark ©