Padre esparver

a SFA

Padre esparver que me acechas desde el cielo
y me citas en el reino de tu nombre,
me petrifica tu voluntad
que se hace en la tierra como en el cielo.
Mi sangre de cada día
se derrama más allá de ti en el día de hoy
pero no sé deshacerme de las viejas culpas
y me reflejo en mis más ciegos deudores.
Me dejo caer en la tentación
de perseguirte en la sombra de mi mal.

(Traducción del poema de Maria-Mercè Marçal del libro Desglaç [Deshielo] 1989)

Some thoughts on writing and translating

It is often said that a translator cannot be considered a writer. However, writers in their prolific careers have done, in most cases, translations. This is obviously an optional task for a poet or a novelist whose most dedicated activity is concerned with creation, composition, and rhythms. All these ingredients that make the writer to go up with a lurch and few seconds later to come down dispossessed and utterly empty, strangely cold and weak.

Writers give themselves entirely to the tireless seeing of words, of images. The poet has surrendered to the control that a novelist possesses of words. The poet cannot be but controlled by the words. They are involved by the rhythm that they passionately deliver with the subtlest delicacy. The main priority of any great poet is to forge the poem to deliver images of extreme vividness, to adequate the impulse of writing to her own eyesight. Words are all invented. No words are out there to be created. The poet does not create words but images. The poet (and this is for every poet) should be able to transmit to the reader the chain of sensations that she or he experience as a writer. The music of the poem needs to harmoniously be interpreted along with the images. Thus, is this not to be found as well when translating?