Translating Puddles
Translating is a challenge. Translating poetry is a bit of an oxymoron.
Every phrase presents endless choices between meaning and message, sense and sound. So, translating poetry becomes making poetry, and maybe that’s why I enjoy it more than so many other impossible things I’ve ever tried.
Here are a few excerpts from a beautiful bilingual edition of Pozzanghere - Puddles (Fabrizio Fabbri Editore, Perugia), a collection of poems by the Italian poet Sabra Azul (Sabrina Caciotto), which I translated in 2019.
Rutilanti gli occhi degli amanti
parlano senza pause
senza il teatro delle parole
Necessitano di nulla
fuorché del loro
sfavillio
E si animano
come fuochi invernali
tra lembi d’azzurri
scintille d’ambra e fiaccole dolorose
Le attese sono dietro al sipario
Si chiude la notte
dentro il rosso velluto
tornano a guardarsi
senza tremare
Fiery the eyes of lovers,
they speak without pause,
without the theatre of words.
They need nothing
but their own
sparkling.
And they come alive
like winter fires
with strips of blue
amber sparks, like doleful torches.
Expectations await behind the curtain
The night draws to a close.
Wrapped in red velvet
they return each other’s gazes
without trembling.
Portami con te
nelle navi dei pirati
malati di lontananze
Portami con te
tra le correnti nuove
di venti furtivi
Luoghi che il cuore non ha mai sognato in sogno
Sii qualcosa d’inatteso
Sii la neve di notte sulle colline d’indaco
Sii la pena dell’attesa diluita
nella gioia dello sguardo
Una nota nel silenzio buio
Un velo a proteggere la vista
sull’orrore bieco del mondo
Take me with you
on the ships of homesick
pirates.
Take me with you
through the unknown currents
of furtive winds.
Take me places the heart has never dreamed in dreams.
Be something unexpected.
Be snow at night on indigo hills.
Be the pain of anticipation dissolved
into the joy of the first gaze.
A note in the dark silence.
A veil to shield from view
the sinister horror of the world.
Ora come luna
che sorgi di mattina
lama sottile, stregata
Ora come incendio
di tramonti marosi passati
Maree e guizzi di
luce
Ora lava, ora nebbia
Sei la pioggia che
lava e cancella
Sei il mare
che il mistero volle
fratello
Sei il volo di quell’airone
stanco e solingo
sulle alte zolle cobalto
una notte che
vivemmo secoli fa
Now like the moon
that rises in the morning,
a thin blade, enchanted.
Now like the fire
of ocean sunsets past.
Tides and flickerings of
light.
Now lava, now mist.
You are the rain that
cleanses and erases.
You are the sea
that mystery wanted
for a brother.
You are the flight of that
tired and solitary heron
through the cobalt heights,
on a night that
we lived centuries ago.
© 2019 Sabrina Caciotto