Even an Anti-Poet has the right to take a walk into the past and reminisce....

Hay un dia feliz by Nicanor Parra, Translated by T Wignesan


To happen upon a happy day

Note: In this poem, Parra maintains lines of twelve to thirteen syllables with every other line ending almost in a mono-rhyme: “a”; I prefer not to follow the same pattern, for I cannot quite see the virtue in forcing the translation into something sounding rather artificially humdrum, given its length.

(Homage to Nicanor PARRA, 1914-2018, the Chilean ANTI-POET, winner of the "Cervantes Prize" (the highest literary honour for writers in Spanish), four times nominated for the Nobel Prize, studied Physics (Brown University), Cosmology (Oxford University) and taught maths and physics for some 40 years, but styles himself as the Poet who writes "Anti-Poems" - a fresh
chastising wind to debunk self-styled poets hardly born to the métier but drunk with their own effete and ephemeral voices. T. Wignesan, Paris, 2016.)

I dedicated this afternoon to combing
...the solitary streets of my village
with for company good ol’ twilight
...who’s the only friend I have left.

Everything was exactly as earlier on, autumn
...and its diffused light (reflected) by snow
just that the weather had invaded everything
...with its pale-looking cloak of sadness.

Never thought, believe me, for an instant
...that I’d see again this beloved land,
now that I have returned, don’t know
...how I could have kept myself away from its portals.

Nothing has changed, not even the white houses
...nor its aged wooden gates.
Everything was in its place, the swallows
...in the tower taller than that of the church;
the snail in the garden; and the moss
...in the wet grasp of stones.
In no way one can doubt, this’s the kingdom
...of the blue sky and of green leaves
where each and every thing has
...its singular and placid legend:
even in my own shadow I recognize
...the heavenly looks of my grandmother.

Those were the memorable facts
...which my early youthful days brought up,
the post office in the corner of the square
...and the dampness in the aging walls.

O! My God! Good thing! Never thought
...that one can appreciate such a truth,
when we imagine that to be yet far away
...is just when it feels even closer.

For the life of me! For the life of me! Something tells me
...that life is nothing more than a chimera
an illusion, a dream without end,
...a small cloud on the wing.

After all, at times, I don’t know quite what I say
...my emotions get the better of me.
Since the time to keep silent has chimed
...when I embarked on my singular enterprise
one after the other in muted waves,
...returned the sheep to the stable.
I greeted them all in person
...and when I was standing opposite the grove
which entertains the ears of the traveller
...with its ineffably secret music
I remembered the sea and counted the leaves
...in homage to my departed brothers.

Perfectly well, I continued my voyage
...like one who has nothing to look forward to in life.
I passed in front of the wheel of the mill,
...I stood for a while facing a shop:
the odour of coffee is always the same,
...always the same moon in my mind;
between the river of yore and that of the present
...I am not able to make out any difference.

I recognize it well, this’s the tree
...my father planted in front of the door
(illustrious father who in his best moments
...was better than an open window).

I dare affirm that his behaviour
...was a faithful copy of the Middle Ages
when the dog was sweetly sleeping
...under the right angle of a star.

At such heights I feel I’m enveloped
...by the delicate odours of violets
that my loving mother cultivated
...in order to cure cough and sadness.

How much time has passed since then
...I would not be able to say with certainty;
nothing really matters, of course,
...with wine and the nightingale on the table,
my younger brothers at this hour
...must be returning from school:
only that time has erased all things
...like a white tempest of sand!

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016