Juan Gil-Albert: La Siesta ("What is the Earth?")

.

Highway 85, Arizona: photo by James S Patterson, 21 February 2014 

..................To Antonio Diaz Zamora

When I arrive at that secret confine
and they question me, “What is the Earth?”
I should say a cold place where the dictator overbears
and the oppressed cry long tears
and where, in shadows and gold teeth,
injustice does the rounds
taking up his profits from the men of property
and mankind’s permanent tragedy; it is a wasteland.
But again, I should have to say,
when in clear altering situations
the land exhales the somnolence
of not knowing the source of one’s fatigue,
when the blue sky pulses like an hallucination
and fruit follows fruit on the white tables
and great windows set ajar cool
in the semi-light, we seek out a bower
where we may fall beneath that soft weight.
It is then that I should tell them that the Earth
is an original happiness, an inward impulse,
like an unprecedented temptation,
composed both of ardour and renunciation,
a giving up and a giving in, a slow love potion. 

Juan Gil-Albert (Alcoy, 1904-Valencia, 1994), La Siesta, from Obra poética completa, Pre-Textos, Valencia, 1981; English translation by John Stammers
 
If someone should ask me one day,
when I reach that secret boundary: what is the earth?
I would say a place where it’s cold
to those whom the strong oppress, a place
where the weak cry out, where like a shadow
injustice moves with billowing cape,
gathering up the rich man’s loose change
and the tragedy of the homeless: a sudden place.
But also I would say that other times in clear but changing situations,
when summer comes and the land seems to dispense a somnolence
and one grows tired without knowing why,
while high above, a dazzling blue sky hums,
and fruits appear in succession on white tables,
under great, half-open windows, in cool penumbral light,
we look for a corner where we might surrender ourselves
to this sweet weight,
then yes, I would say
that the earth is an irreplaceable good,
a flowing happiness, an entrancing touch.
Like a temptation without precedent,
made of both ardor and renunciation.
A pleasant immersion, a slow acting love potion.

Juan Gil-Albert: La Siesta, alternate translation by Hazen Robert Walker

Hampstead Pond, London, summer: photo by Kate Kirkwood, 10 July 2013

.................A Antonio Díaz Zamora
 
Si alguien me preguntara cuando un día
llegue al confín secreto : ¿qué es la tierra?
diría que un lugar en que hace frío
en el que el fuerte oprime, el débil llora,
y en el que como sombra, la injusticia,
va con su capa abierta recogiendo
el óbolo del rico y la tragedia
del desahuciado : un sitio abrupto.
Pero también diría que otras veces,
en claras situaciones alternantes,
cuando llega el estío y los países
parecen dispensar la somnolencia
de un no saber por qué se está cansado,
mientras vibra en lo alto, alucinante,
un cielo azul, los frutos se suceden
sobre las mesas blancas, y entornados
los ventanales, frescos de penumbra,
buscamos un rincón donde rendirnos
al dulce peso, entonces sí, diría
que la tierra es un bien irremplazable,
un fluido feliz, un toque absorto.
Como una tentación sin precedentes
hecha a la vez de ardor y de renuncia.
Una inmersión gustosa, un filtro lento.

01904 [Untitled]: photo by Junk Male (borrowed_time), 31 December 2007