- Aaron Moore
- Memorization
Table of Contents
- English Translation
- Spanish Original
Ballad
Come back, called a guitar to me,
near Rancagua, in autumn.
All the poplars wore
the color and tingle of bells.
It was cold and the sky spread
amply over the sadness.
A drunk came into the canteen,
stumbling under his load of grapes,
which filled his hat to the brim
and were spilling out of his eyes.
He had mud on his boots.
He had trampled on the effigy
of autumn, and had flattened
all it's yellow fingers.
I never went back to the prairies.
But hardly do the hours ring out,
halting and dishonored,
than there falls across my heart
the buttons and the smile;
when they have stopped being clear,
the numerals of forgetting,
that guitar still calls me,
and now, so much time has passed
that perhaps nothing exists,
neither the prairie nor the autumn;
and I would arrive, of a sudden,
like a ghost in the great void,
with its hat full of grapes,
asking about the guitar;
and since nobody would be there,
no one would understand anything,
and I would trail back, closing
that door which does not exist.
by Pablo Neruda
tr. Alastair Reid
Balada
Vuelve, me dijo una guitarra
cerca de Rancagua, en otoño.
Todo los álamos tenían
color y temblor de campana:
hacía frío y era redondo
el cielo sobre la tristeza.
Entró a la cantina un borracho
tambaleando bajo las uvas
que le llenaban el sombrero
y le salían por los ojos.
Tenía barro en los zapatos,
había pisado la estatua
del otoño y había aplastado
todas sus manos amarillas.
Yo nunca volví a las praderas.
Pero apenas suenan las horas
cuando al corazón se le caen
los botones y la sonrisa,
cuando dejan de ser celestes
los numerales del olvido,
aquella guitarra me llama,
y ya ha pasado tanto tiempo
que ya tal vez no exista nada,
ni la pradera ni el otoño,
y yo llegaría de pronto
como un fantasma en el vacío
con el sombrero lleno de uvas
preguntando por la guitarra,
y como allí no habría nadie
nadie entendaría nada
y yo volvería cerrando
aquella puerta que no existe.
de Pablo Neruda
Personal Notes
-
Kate lent me a book of Neruda's poetry that she liked when we were early on dating each other. I took it to Rock
Lake and there is a photo of my reading it in the sunlight that looks sort of melodramatic. "See the artistic
youth, enjoying Neruda in the sunshine." Anyways, she got me Extravegaria for a present sometime after that.