A Poem For Today - Portrait - Antonio Machado - English and Spanish

[KDick...@aol.com]

Portrait

 

My childhood is memories of a patio in Seville

and a bright orchard where lemon trees ripen;

my youth, twenty years on the soil of Castile;

my life, a few events as well forgotten.

 

I've never played Lothario or Don Juan's part -

by now you know my plain, almost monkish dress -

yet I was struck by Cupid's intended dart

and I loved wherever I found welcomeness.

 

Coursing my veins are drops of Jacobinic blood,

but my poetry springs from a quiet fountain;

and in the good sense of the word, I am good,

better than the upright man who holds to docrtine.

 

I love beauty, and true to modern aesthetics

have cut old roses from the garden of Ronsard;

but I dislike the rouge of current cosmetics,

and am no chirping bird in the latest garb.

 

I disdain the romances of hollow tenors

and the choir of crickets singing to the moon.

I halt among the echoes of pretenders,

and hear - amid their voices - but one tune.

 

Am I classic or romantic? I don't know.

I would leave my verse as a warrior his blade:

known for the manly hand that made it glow,

not for the smith's famous mark or trade.

 

I chat with the man who goes with me to the end -

who speaks alone hopes to speak to God one day -

my soliloquy is talk with this good friend

who showed me the secret of philanthropic ways.

 

In the end I owe you nothing. You owe me what I write.

By my work I pay for the house I rent,

the clothes that cover me, my bed at night,

the plain bread that gives me nourishment.

 

And when the day for my last trip arrives,

and the ship, never to return, is set to leave,

you will find me on board with scant supplies

almost  naked, like the children of the sea.

 

Antonio Machado

 

Retrato

Mi infancia son recuerdos de un patio de Sevilla,
y un huerto claro donde madura el limonero;
mi juventud, veinte años en tierra de Castilla;
mi historia, algunos casos que recordar no quiero.

Ni un seductor Mañara , ni un Bradomín he sido
-ya conocéis mi torpe aliño indumentario-,
mas recibí la flecha que me asignó Cupido,
y amé cuanto ellas puedan tener de hospitalario.

Hay en mis venas gotas de sangre jacobina,
pero mi verso brota de manantial sereno;
y, más que un hombre al uso que sabe su doctrina,
soy, en el buen sentido de la palabra, bueno.

Adoro la hermosura, y en la moderna estética
corté las viejas rosas del huerto de Ronsard;
mas no amo los afeites de la actual cosmética,
ni soy un ave de esas del nuevo gay-trinar.

Desdeño las romanzas de los tenores huecos
y el coro de los grillos que cantan a la luna.
A distinguir me paro las voces de los ecos,
y escucho solamente, entre las voces, una.

¿Soy clásico o romántico? No sé. Dejar quisiera
mi verso, como deja el capitán su espada:
famosa por la mano viril que la blandiera,
no por el docto oficio del forjador preciada.

Converso con el hombre que siempre va conmigo
-quien habla solo espera hablar a Dios un día-;
mi soliloquio es plática con ese buen amigo
que me enseñó el secreto de la filantropía.

Y al cabo, nada os debo; debéisme cuanto he escrito.
A mi trabajo acudo, con mi dinero pago
el traje que me cubre y la masión que habito,
el pan que me alimenta y el lecho en donde yago.

Y cuando llegue el día del último viaje,
y esté al partir la nave que nunca ha de tornar,
me encontraréis a bordo ligero de equipage,
casi desnudo, como los hijos de la mar.

 

Antonio Machado

[Fernando Aranguiz]

Hi ken,

Great Poem!

Some of Machado's poems were transformed into songs by Joan Serrat, a singer from Catalunya, Spain. In the Tokarev Report appears some fragments of a poem by Machado.

Something like this in english:

Traveler, your footsteps are
the way and nothing more
Traveler, there is not a path
the path is made by walking.
Walking makes the way
and looking back at the view behind
shows the road that never
is treaded again.
Traveler there is no path
but wakes on the sea...

big hug

fernando

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[thel juarez]

A wonderfully meaningful poem, indeed.  Tank Ken. And thank you, too Fernando .  From the work you shared,. this phrase , "the path is made by walking". is most striking! hugs, thelma " The Human in You, and The Human in the Other Are One, Are The Same." pls. visit: www.convergenceofcultures.org                www.thelmarjuarez.blogspot.com --- On Thu, 5/5/11, Fernando Aranguiz <fer.ar...@gmail.com> wrote:

[HUM...@aol.com]

Ken,

Something nice and genuine about this 'self-portrait', as it were. Noble, I would say.

I like the cadence and unfolding, too...

-dr

 

.......................................................................................

[Fernando Aranguiz]

Hi thelma,

How are those great Haikus of yours?

a big hug

fernando

[Trudi Richards]

Beautiful, Ken, and Fernando - thanks!
big hug
Trudi

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 9:37 AM, <KDick...@aol.com> wrote:

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--
Trudi Lee Richards
Davis Community of Silo's Message
Davis, California

"The sacred is within us and nothing bad can happen in the search for the profound and the unnameable..."
- Silo, 2004