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Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish Edition)

Page 25

by Antonio Machado


  72

  Más no te importe si rueda

  y pasa de mano en mano:

  del oro se hace moneda.

  73

  De un Arte de Bien Comer,

  primera lección:

  No has de coger la cuchara

  con el tenedor.

  74

  Señor San Jerónimo,

  suelte usted la piedra

  con que se machaca.

  Me pegó con ella.

  75

  Conversación de gitanos:

  —Para rodear,

  toma la calle de en medio;

  nunca llegarás.

  76

  El tono lo da la lengua,

  ni más alto ni más bajo;

  sólo acompáñate de ella.

  77

  ¡Tartarín en Koenigsberg!

  Con el puño en la mejilla,

  todo lo llegó a saber.

  78

  Crisolad oro en copela,

  y burilad lira y arco

  no en joya, sino en moneda.

  79

  Del romance castellano

  no busques la sal castiza;

  mejor que romance viejo,

  poeta, cantar de niñas.

  Déjale lo que no puedes

  quitarle: su melodía

  de cantar que canta y cuenta

  un ayer que es todavía.

  80

  Concepto mondo y lirondo

  suele ser cáscara hueca;

  puede ser caldera al rojo.

  81

  Si vivir es bueno,

  es mejor soñar,

  y mejor que todo,

  madre, despertar.

  82

  No el sol, sino la campana,

  cuando te despierta, es

  lo mejor de la mañana.

  83

  ¡Qué gracia! En la Hesperia triste,

  promontorio occidental,

  en este cansino rabo

  de Europa, par desollar,

  y en una ciudad antigua,

  chiquita coma un dedal,

  ¡el hombrecillo que fuma

  y piensa, y ríe al pensar:

  cayeron las altas torres;

  en un basurero están

  la corona de Guillermo,

  la testa de Nicolás!

  Baeza, 1919

  84

  Entre las brevas soy blando;

  entre las rocas, de piedra.

  ¡Malo!

  85

  ¿Tu verdad? No, la Verdad,

  y yen conmigo a buscarla.

  La tuya, guárdatela.

  86

  Tengo a mis amigos

  en mi soledad;

  cuando estoy con ellos

  ¡qué lejos están!

  87

  ¡Oh Guadalquivir!

  Te vi en Cazorla nacer;

  hoy, en Sanlúcar morir.

  Un borbollón de agua clara,

  debajo de un pino verde,

  eras tú, qué bien sonabas!

  Como yo, cerca del mar,

  río de barro salobre,

  ¿sueñas con tu manantial?

  88

  El pensamiento barroco

  pinta virutas de fuego,

  hincha y complica el decoro.

  89

  Sin embargo...

  —Oh, sin embargo,

  hay siempre un ascua de veras

  en su incendio de teatro.

  90

  ¿Ya de su color se avergüenzan

  las hojas de la albahaca,

  salvias y alhucemas?

  91

  Siempre en alto, siempre en alto,

  ¿Renovación? Desde arriba.

  Dijo la cucaña al árbol.

  92

  Dijo el árbol: Teme al hacha,

  palo clavado en el suelo:

  contigo la poda es tala.

  93

  ¿Cuál es la verdad? ¿Eı río

  que fluye y pasa

  donde el barco y barquero

  son también ondas del agua?

  ¿O este soñar del marino

  siempre con ribera y ancla?

  94

  Sin embargo...

  —Oh, sin embargo, hay siempre un ascua de veras

  en su incendio de teatro.

  95

  Pero tampoco es razón

  desdeñar

  consejo que es confesión.

  96

  ¿Ya sientes la savia nueva?

  Cuida, arbolillo,

  que nadie lo sepa.

  97

  Cuida de que no se entere

  la cucaña seca

  de tus ojos verdes.

  98

  Tu profecía, poeta.

  —Mañana hablarán los mudos:

  el corazón y la piedra.

  99

  —¿Mas el arte?...

  —Es puro juego,

  que es igual a pura vida,

  que es igual a puro fuego.

  Veréis el ascua encendida.

  Proverbs and Songs

  to José Ortega y Gasset

  1

  The eye you see is not

  an eye because you see it.

  It is eye because it sees you.

  2

  To converse

  first ask,

  then... listen.

  3

  All narcissism glows

  as an ugly vice

  and one by now old.

  4

  But seek in your mirror the other

  who walks with you.

  5

  Between living and dream

  there is a third way.

  Guess it.

  6

  Now your Narcissus

  can’t spot himself in the mirror

  since he is the glass.

  7

  A new century? Still the same

  flaming up the same forge?

  And does water still race

  in old pipes into a gorge?

  8

  Today is always still.

  9

  Sun in the Ram. My window

  is open to the cold air.

  O gossip of far water!

  The twilight wakes the river.

  10

  In the ancient hamlet

  —O wide towers with storks!—

  the chatty noise dies out,

  and in the solitary field

  water sounds among the rocks.

  11

  Again I play my part

  bound up with water,

  yet water in the living

  rock of my heart.

  12

  When water sounds, can you know

  if it is water from a peak or valley,

  a plaza, garden or from an orchard?

  13

  What I find astounds me:

  leaves of garden balm

  smell of ripe lemon.

  14

  Never lay out your frontier

  or sharpen your profile.

  That is all veneer.

  15

  Look for your counterpart

  who always walks with you

  and mostly is what you are not.

  16

  When spring comes

  soar into flowers.

  Don’t suck wax.

  17

  In my solitude

  I have seen very clear things

  that are not true.

  18

  Good are water and thirst,

  good are shadow and sun;

  the honey from rosemary,

  the honey of a flowerless field.

  19

  At the border of the road

  there is a stone fountain

  and a small earthen jar

  —gurgling—that no one moves.

  20

  Guess this riddle.

  What is a fountain,

  a jug and water?

  21

  I’ve seen people even

  drink
from mud puddles.

  Thirst has its caprices.

  22

  Let there be but one symbol:

  quod elixum est ne asato.

  Don’t roast what’s been boiled.

  23

  Sing, sing, sing,

  the cricket in its cage

  next to its tomato.

  24

  Slowly shape a good letter.

  Making things fine

  means more than making them.

  25

  Anyhow.

  Ah! anyhow,

  it’s vital to liven your oars,

  the snail told the greyhound.

  26

  At last some active men!

  The puddle was dreaming

  of its mosquitoes.

  27

  O empty skull!

  To think it all took place

  inside you, skull!

  said a second Dr. Pandolfo.

  28

  Singers, leave

  the clapping and cheers

  to others.

  29

  Wake up, singers:

  Let echoes end,

  voices begin.

  30

  Don’t hunt for dissonance.

  In the end nothing sounds bad

  and people dance to any tune.

  31

  A wrestler over the hill.

  Yesterday a prince,

  tomorrow trash.

  32

  Brawler, boxer,

  beat up the wind.

  33

  Anyhow.

  Oh, anyhow,

  You hang onto the fetish of waiting

  for your quota of punches.

  34

  O rinnovarsi o perire...

  It doesn’t sound good.

  Navigare è necessario...39

  Better. Live to see.

  35

  A new cipher is ripening

  and will snare its groupies.

  An activist is as useless

  as a rational being.

  36

  The poet doesn’t look

  for the fundamental I40

  but the essential you.

  37

  A doctor said: “As old

  as the world” means to be

  learned, forgotten and buried

  like Rameses’s mummy.

  38

  But the doctor didn’t know

  that today is always still.

  39

  Find a mirror in someone,

  but not for shaving

  or dyeing your hair.

  40

  The eyes you sigh for,

  get it straight,

  eyes you see yourself in

  are eyes because they see you.

  41

  “Now old words are heard.”

  Well, sharpen your ears.

  42

  Christ teaches: love your neighbor

  as yourself, yet never

  forget the neighbor is someone else.

  43

  He said another truth:

  Find the you who is never yours

  and never can be.

  44

  Don’t despise words.

  Poets, the world is noisy

  and mute. Only God talks.

  45

  Everything for others?

  Young man, fill your jar

  so they will drink it up.

  46

  One lies more than can be counted

  for lack of imagination.

  Truth also is invented.

  47

  Authors, the scene ends

  with one rule of theater:

  In the beginning was the mask.

  48

  The worst of the gang

  of scoundrels is one who forgets

  his vocation as devil.

  49

  Did you say a half-truth?

  They’ll say you lie twice

  if you spill the other half.

  50

  To you I don’t allude

  in my song, friend.

  That you is me.41

  51

  Give time to time.

  For your cup to run over.

  you must fill it first.

  52

  Hour of my heart.

  The hour of a hope

  and a despair.

  53

  Beyond living and dreaming

  is what matters most:

  coming awake.

  54

  His voice quivers when he sings.

  Now they don’t hiss his lyrics,

  they’re hissing his heart.

  55

  Now there were some who said:

  Cogito ergo non sum.42

  What an exaggeration!

  56

  Gypsy talk.

  “How are we doing, pal?”

  “Circling down the shortcut.”

  57

  Some in despair

  only heal with the rope,

  others with seven words.

  Faith is back in style.

  58

  I thought my fireplace dead

  and stirred the ashes.

  I burned my fingers.

  59

  He broke into a laugh!

  A very serious man!

  No one would guess it.

  60

  Let’s divvy the work.

  The bad guys dip the arrow,

  the good ones flex the bow.

  61

  Like don Sem Tob,

  he dies his white hair

  and more reasonably.

  62

  To find work for the wind

  he sewed the tree’s dry leaves

  with a double thread.

  63

  He felt the four winds

  at the crossroads

  of his thought.

  64

  Do you know the invisible

  spinners of dreams?

  Two of them: green hope

  and grim fear.

  They bet on who

  spins more and more lightly,

  she with a gold ball,

  he with a black ball.

  With the thread we are given

  we weave when we weave.

  65

  Sow mallow

  but don’t eat it,

  said Pythagoras.

  Answer the ax

  —said the Buddha and the Christ!—

  with your sandalwood aroma.

  It’s good to remember

  the old words

  that come back and ring out.

  66

  Pay attention.

  A solitary heart

  is not a heart.

  67

  Bees, singers,

  not to the honey but to flowers.

  68

  Every fool has the vice

  of confusing worth and price.

  69

  He saw his shadow walking in dreams.

  Good hunter of himself,

  always lying in ambush.

  70

  He caught his bad man,

  who on sunblue days

  walks with his head down.

  71

  Give your poems double light,

  reading them head on

  and at an angle.

  72

  Don’t worry if it goes around

  and slips from hand to hand:

  out of gold is made a coin.

  73

  From an Art of Table Manners,

  lesson one:

  You must not pick up the spoon

  with the fork.

  74

  Lord Saint Jerome,

  let go of that stone

  you pound yourself with.

  He bashed me with it.

  75

  Gypsy talk:

  “For going around

  take the middle road.

  You’ll never get there.”

  76

&nbs
p; Your tongue sets the tone,

  not too high nor too low.

  Just stay with it.

  77

  Tartarin in Kant’s Königsberg!

  With his cheek on his fist,

  he managed to learn everything.43

 

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