Sublime Blue: Selected Early Odes by Pablo Neruda Read Free

once wrote a short piece positing that “translating poetry is like trying to carry a wave in a bucket.” Certainly these poems often do refer us to the sea, for a sense of what is most vital, dauntless, vast, finally reassuring. Perhaps it is apt that I first undertook to translate them in the Sonoran desert, ghost of a vast prehistoric sea. Whitman wrote of believing sea waves could be a poet’s most apt mentors. Translators, perhaps, more often settle for the modest model inherent in Robert Creeley’s “Be wet/with a decent happiness.”
    All grace notes are due to my helping hands, including, I suspect, those of
el maestro
from time to time. All errors and infelicities, as well as any demonstrations of how original wine can be converted into tap water, are entirely my own.
    William Pitt Root
Oracle, Oklahoma City, Port Townsend, Missoula,
Gig Harbor, Tucson/American Airlines/Manhattan,
Winston-Salem, Knoxville, Durango
    * The
Memoirs
referred to throughout the introduction are Hardie St. Martin’s translations of Neruda.



El hombre invisible
    Yo me río,
    me sonrío
    de los viejos poetas,
    yo adoro toda
    la poesía escrita,
    todo el rocío,
    luna, diamante, gota
    de plata sumergida,
    que fue mi antiguo hermano,
    agregando a la rosa,
    pero
    me sonrío
    siempre dicen “yo”
    a cada paso
    les sucede algo,
    es siempre “yo”,
    por las calles
    sólo ellos andan
    o la, dulce que aman,
    nadie más,
    no pasan pescadores,
    ni libreros,
    no pasan albañiles,
    nadie se cae
    de un andamio,
    nadie sufre,
    nadie ama,
    sólo mi pobre hermano,
    el poeta,
    a él le pasan
    todas las cosas
    ya su dulce querida,
    nadie vive

The Invisible Man
    I laugh
    and I smile
    when it comes to the old poets,
    I adore all
    the poetry they wrote,
    all the dewmoon-
    diamond-drops
    of sunken silver
    my older brother gathered
    to improve upon the rose,
    yet
    I smile,
    for always they say “I,”
    every time
    something happens,
    always they say “I,”
    through the streets
    it is only they who walk
    they or the one they love,
    no one else is ever around,
    no fishermen pass,
    no booksellers,
    bricklayers never pass,
    no one tumbles
    from a scaffold,
    no one suffers,
    no one’s in love,
    only my poor brother,
    the poet,
    all things happen
    to him
    or to his sweet mistress,
    no one else even exists,
    sino él solo,
    nadie llora de hambre
    o de ira,
    nadie sufre en sus versos
    porque no puede
    pagar el alquiler,
    a nadie en poesía
    echan a la calle
    con camas y con sillas
    y en las fábricas
    tampoco pasa nada,
    no pasa nada,
    se hacen paraguas, copas,
    armas, locomotoras,
    se extraen minerales
    rascando el infierno,
    hay huelga,
    vienen soldados,
    disparan,
    disparan contra el pueblo,
    es decir,
    contra la poesía,
    y mi hermano
    el poeta
    estaba enamorado, o sufría
    porque sus sentimientos
    son marinos,
    ama los puertos
    remotos, por sus nombres,
    y escribe sobre océanos
    que no conoce,
    junto a la vida, repleta
    como el maíz de granos,
    Ã©l pasa sin saber
    desgranarla,
    Ã©l sube y baja
    sin tocar la tierra,
    just him and him alone,
    no one cries out in hunger
    or wrath,
    in his verses no one suffers
    unable
    make the rent,
    never in his poetry
    is anyone thrown out into the street
    along with the bed and chairs
    and in the factories
    nothing happens,
    not a thing,
    umbrellas are made, wine glasses,
    weapons, locomotives,
    scraping out that hell
    they extract minerals,
    there’s a labor strike,
    soldiers come,
    they shoot,
    they fire against the people,
    that is to say
    against poetry,
    and my brother
    the poet
    is in love, or suffers
    because of his passion
    for the sea,
    he loves exotic ports
    for their names,
    he writes of oceans
    he doesn’t know,
    he passes right alongside of life
    without knowing enough
    to harvest its plenty bulging
    like kernels from an ear of corn,
    he falls and rises
    without ever touching earth,
    o a veces
    se siente