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Jaime Sabines (Born in Chiapas, 1926 – died in México City, 1999)
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“On Hope”
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Occupy yourselves here with hope.
The joy of the day that’s coming
buds in your eyes like a new light.
But that day that’s coming isn’t going to come: this is it.
. . .
“De la esperanza”
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Entreteneos aquí con la esperanza.
Es júbilo del día que vendrá
os germina en los ojos como una luz reciente.
Pero ese día que vendrá no ha de venir: es éste.
. . .
“On Illusion”
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On the tablet of my heart you wrote:
Desire.
And I walked for days and days,
mad and scented and dejected.
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“De la ilusión”
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Escribiste en la tabla de mi corazón:
Desea.
Y yo anduve días y días,
loco, aromado, y triste.
. . .
“On Death”
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Bury it.
There are many silent men under the earth
who will take care of it.
Don’t leave it here.
Bury it.
“De la muerte”
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Enterradla.
Hay muchos hombres quietos, bajo tierra,
que han de cuidarla.
No la dejéis aquí –
Enterradla.
. . .
“On Myth”
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My mother told me that I cried in her womb.
They said to her: he’ll be lucky.
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Someone spoke to me all the days of my life
into my ear, slowly, taking their time.
Said to me: live, live, live!
It was Death.
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“Del mito”
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Mi madre me contó que yo lloré en su vientre.
A ella le dijeron: tendrá suerte.
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Alguien me habló todos los días de mi vida
al oído, despacio, lentamente.
Me dijo: ¡vive, vive, vive!
Era la Muerte.
. . .
If I were going to die in a moment, I would write these words of wisdom: tree of bread and honey, rhubarb, coca-cola, zonite, swastika. And then I would start to cry.
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You can start to cry even at the word “excused” if you want to cry.
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And this is how it is with me now. I’m ready to give up even my fingernails, to take out my eyes and squeeze them like lemons over the cup of coffee.
(“Let’s have a cup of coffee with eye peel, My Heart”).
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Before the ice of silence descends on my tongue, before my throat splits and my heart keels over like a leather sack, I want to tell you, My Life, how grateful I am for this stupendous liver that let me eat all your roses on the day when I got into your hidden garden without anyone seeing me.
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I remember it. I filled my heart with diamonds – they are fallen stars that have aged in the dust of the earth – and it kept jingling like a tambourine when I laughed. The only thing that really annoys me is that I could have been born sooner and I didn’t do it.
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Don’t put love into my hands like a dead bird.
Si hubiera de morir dentro de unos instantes, escribiría estas sabias palabras: árbol del pan y de la miel, ruibarbo, coca-cola, zonite, cruz gamada. Y me echaría a llorar.
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Uno puede llorar hasta con la palabra “excusado” si tiene ganas de llorar.
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Y esto es lo que hoy me pasa. Estoy dispuesto a perder hasta las uñas, a sacarme los ojos y a exprimirlos como limones sobre la taza de café.
(“Te convido a una taza de café con cascaritas de ojo, corazón mío”).
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Antes de que caiga sobre mi lengua el hielo del silencio, antes de que se raje mi garganta y mi corazón se desplome como una bolsa de cuero, quiero decirte, vida mía, lo agradecido que estoy, por este higado estupendo que me dejó comer todas tus rosas, el día que entré a tu jardín oculto sin que nadie me viera.
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Lo recuerdo. Me llené el corazón de diamantes – que son estrellas caídas y envejecidas en el polvo de la tierra – y lo anduve sonando como una sonaja mientras reía. No tengo otro rencor que el que tengo, y eso porque pude nacer antes y no lo hiciste.
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No pongas el amor en mis manos como un pájaro muerto.
I take pleasure in the way the rain beats its wings on the back of the floating city.
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The dust comes down. The air is left clean, crossed by leaves of odour, by birds of coolness, by dreams. The sky receives the city that is being born.
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Streetcars, buses, trucks, people on bicycles and on foot, carts of all colours, street-vendors, bakers, pots of tamales, grilles of baked bananas, balls flying between one child and another: the streets swell, the sounds of voices multiply in the last light of the day hung up to dry.
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They come out like ants after the rain, to pick up the crumb of the sky, the little straw of eternity to take away to their dark houses, with cuttlefish hanging from the roofs, with weaving spiders under the beds, and with one familiar ghost, at least, in back of some door.
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Thanks be to you, Mother of the Black Clouds, who have so whitened the face of the afternoon and have helped us to go on loving life.
. . .
Me gustan los aletazos de la lluvia sobre los lomos de la ciudad flotante.
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Desciende del polvo. El aire queda limpio, atravesado de hojas de olor, de pájaros de frescura, de sueños. El cielo recibe a la ciudad naciente.
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Tranvías, autobuses, camiones, gentes en bicicleta y a pie, carritos de colores, vendedores ambulantes, panaderos, ollas de tamales, parrillas de plátanos horneados, pelotas de un niño al otro: crecen las calles, se multiplican los rumores en las últimas luces del día puesto a secar.
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Salen, como las hormigas después de la lluvia, a recoger la migas del cielo, la pajita de la eternidad que han de llevarse a sus casas sombrías, con pulpos colgando del techo, con arañas tejedoras debajo de la cama, y con un fantasma familiar, cuando menos, detrás de alguna puerta.
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Gracias te son dadas, Madre de las Nubes Negras, que has puesto tan blanca la cara de la tarde y que nos has ayudado a seguir amando la vida.
. . .
Before long you will offer these pages to people you don’t know as though you were holding out a handful of grass that you had cut.
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Proud and depressed of your achievement you will come back and fling yourself into your favourite corner.
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You call yourself a poet because you don’t have enough modesty to remain silent.
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Good luck to you, thief, with what you’re stealing from your suffering – and your loves! Let’s see what sort of image you make out of the pieces of your shadow you pick up.
. . .
Dentro de poco vas a ofrecer estas páginas a los desconocidos como si extendieras en la mano un manojo de hierbas que tú cortaste.
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Ufano y acongojado de tu proeza, regresarás a echarte al rincón preferido.
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Dices que eres poeta porque no tienes el pudor necesario del silencio.
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¡Bien te vaya, ladrón, con lo que le robas a tu dolor y a tus amores! ¡A ver qué imagen haces de ti mismo con los pedazos que recoges de tu sombra!
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You have what I look for, what I long for, what I love – you have it.
The fist of my heart is beating, calling.
I thank the stories for you.
I thank your mother and your father and death who has not seen you.
I thank the air for you.
You are elegant as wheat,
delicate as the outline of your body.
I have never loved a slender woman
but you have made my hands fall in love,
you moored my desire,
you caught my eyes like two fish.
And for this I am at your door, waiting.
. . .
Tú tienes lo que busco, lo que deseo, lo que amo – tú lo tienes.
El puño de mi corazón está golpeando, llamando.
Te agradezco a lo cuentos,
doy gracias a tu madre y a tu padre,
y a lo muerte que no te ha visto.
Te agradezco al aire.
Eres esbelta como el trigo,
frágil como la línea du tu cuerpo.
Nunca he amado a mujer delgada
pero tú has enamorado mis manos,
ataste mi deseo,
cogiste mis ojos como dos peces.
Por eso estoy a tu puerta, esperando.
. . .
From: Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines: Pieces of Shadow
Translations from Spanish into English © W.S. Merwin (1995)
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Jaime Sabines (1926-1999) was born in Tuxtla Gutiérrez in the state of Chiapas, México.
At 19 he moved to México City, studying Medicine for three years, then switching to Philosophy and Literature at UNAM (University of México). He published eight volumes of poetry, including Horal (1950), Tarumba (1956), and Maltiempo (1972), receiving the Xavier Villaurrutia Award for the latter. He was granted the Chiapas Prize in 1959 and the National Literature Award in 1983. He also served as a congressman for Chiapas. Octavio Paz called Sabines one of the handful of poets that comprised the beginning of Modern Latin-American Poetry. For such poets the aim of the poem was not – as before – to invent, rather to explore. In a 1970s interview Sabines observed: “No subject matter can be forced upon the poet. He must be a witness to his times. Must discover reality and recreate it. He should speak of that which he lives and experiences. I feel that a poet must first of all be authentic; I mean by this that there must be a correspondence between his personal world and the world that surrounds him. If you have a mystical inclination – why not write about it? If you live alone and are afflicted by your solitude – why not speak about it, if it is yours? Poetry must bear witness to our everyday lives.”
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La obra de Jaime Sabines (1926-1999) representa, dentro de la poesía mexicana contemporánea, una isla que se vincula con la realidad a través de puentes inexorables: la muerte, la inquietud social, la angustia por la existencia, la presencia o la ausencia de Dios y – fundamentalmente – el amor. El amor es – en un poema de Sabines – no sólo un sentimiento sino también una herramienta – un clave personal – para comunicarse no sólo con la mujer sino con el mundo. Sabines fue el más notable precursor de la poesía coloquial en América Latina. (Mario Benedetti, 2007)
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