Three Poems by María Mercedes Carranza Translated by Jere Paulmeno

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Sunday Song

It’s no use to pick another way,

to decide between this wounded word and a yawn,

to enter the door through which you’ll get lost

or go on like some forgotten thing.

It’s no use watering roots

of what may be chimeras, trees or scars,

to change your role or your scenery,

to be an arc, chord, whore or shadow,

to name and not name, to decide by the stars.

It’s no use to rush and to predict,

because there’s not enough time to see

or delay your entire life

getting to know your face in the mirror.

Lilies, cement, those light blue eyes,

the clouds that pass, the scent of a body,

the chair that receives the oblique light of evening,

the air you drink, laughter or Sundays, all of it,

indifferent and inevitable, carries you to your death.

Canción de domingo

Es inútil escoger otro camino,

decidir entre esta palabra herida y el bostezo,

atravesar la puerta tras la cual te vas a perder

o seguir de largo como cualquier olvido.

Es inútil rociar raíces

que sean quimeras, árboles o cicatrices,

cambiar de papel y de escenario,

ser arco, cuerda, puta o sombra,

nombrar y no nombrar, decidirse por las estrellas.

Es inútil llevar prisa y adivinar,

porque no hay tiempo para ver

o demorarse la vida entera

en conocer tu rostro en el espejo.

Los lirios, el cemento, esos ojos zarcos,

las nubes que pasan, el olor de un cuerpo,

la silla que recibe la luz oblicua de la tarde,

todo el aire que bebes, toda risa o domingo,

todo te lleva indiferente y fatal hacia tu muerte.

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If Love Wants Me to Follow Its Whims

I’ve forgotten everyone’s names,

the names of my dead loved ones and those of my children.

I don’t recognize the smells of my own house

nor the sound of the key turning in the door.

I don’t remember how the voices dearest to me sound

nor see the things my eyes are looking at.

Words sound but I don’t understand them,

I’m a foreigner walking these intimate streets

and neither happiness nor misery can hurt me.

I’ve erased my 40 years of history.

I love you.

Si quiere amor que siga sus antojos

He olvidado los nombres de todos,

los nombres de mis muertos y los de mis hijos.

No reconozco los olores de mi casa

ni el sonido de la llave que gira en la puerta.

No recuerdo el metal de las voces más queridas

ni veo las cosas que mis ojos miran.

Las palabras suenan sin que yo comprenda,

soy extranjera por estas calles íntimas

y no hay dicha ni desdicha que me hieran.

He borrado mi historia de 40 años.

Te amo.

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Oblivion

Everything happens in the surge of memory:

those words that were said lose their splendor,

that mouth disappears from its smiles,

daybreak still comes but nobody waits for it,

his body is like any other body,

absence dies, the unsated appetite that goes with it, 

the telephone no longer brings his voice and so what.

The light goes out that illuminated the scene

and made the tables and the eyes shine.

This is oblivion, the always-open door

nobody knows they’re going through.

It happens one day and then memory begins,

that slow backward look over dead territory.

El olvido

Todo sucede en el oleaje de la memoria:

palabras que fueron dichas pierden su esplendor,

de las sonrisas desaparece esa boca,

el amanecer ocurre todavía pero nadie lo espera ya,

su cuerpo es igual a otro cuerpo,

muere la ausencia, ese insaciado apetito que acompaña,

el teléfono no trae su voz y poco importa.

Se apaga la luz que iluminaba la escena

y hacía brillar las mesas y los ojos.

Es el olvido, puerta siempre abierta

que nadie sabe cuándo se atraviesa.

Ocurre un día y comienza entonces el recuerdo,

lenta mirada sobre territorios muertos.

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María Mercedes Carranza (1945-2003) was a Colombian poet known for her spare, direct and colloquial style in expressing personal and societal disillusion. She published five books of poetry. As founder/director of the Silva House of Poetry in Bogotá, Carranza helped create a wider public for poetry in Colombia. She was also a cultural journalist for various national publications. Her life ended in suicide at age 58. These three poems come from Hola, soledad (Hello, Solitude) (1987), her third book, in which the middle-aged poet confronts illusions of romantic love and of life itself.

Jere Paulmeno lives in suburban Denver, Colorado where he writes verse and translates poetry from the Spanish and the Italian. He has published in various journals. His recent work includes translations of sonnets by Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and José Eustasio Rivera.

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27 June 2023