88
El mes de Marzo vuelve con su luz escondida
y se deslizan peces inmensos por el cielo,
vago vapor terrestre progresa sigiloso,
una por una caen al silencio las cosas.
Por suerte en esta crisis de atmósfera errabunda
reuniste las vidas del mar con las del fuego,
el movimiento gris de la nave de invierno,
la forma que el amor imprimió a la guitarra.
Oh amor, rosa mojada por sirenas y espumas,
fuego que baila y sube la invisible escalera
y despierta en el túnel del insomnio a la sangre
para que se consuman las olas en el cielo,
olvide el mar sus bienes y leones
y caiga el mundo adentro de las redes oscuras.
88
The month of March returns with its hidden light,
and immense fish slide through the sky.
Vague earthly vapors move on in secret,
and one by one all things fall silent.
As luck would have it, in this crisis of wandering weather,
you rejoined the life of the sea with that of fire,
the grey movement of the winter ship,
the shape that love imprints upon guitars.
Oh love, rose dampened by sirens and foam,
dancing fire that ascends the invisible stair
and awakens the blood in insomnia's tunnel,
so that waves may consume themselves in the sky,
that the sea may forget its goods and lions
and the world may fall into the net of darkness.
Translation: Terence Clarke
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Pablo Naruda Love Sonnet Translation
Dear Tarence Clarke
Thanks for Translating Naruda's Sonnet 88; I read it here. And as it was to be, your translation has become my first Introduction to contemporary Spanish Poetry... and being an illiterate in Spanish and its Poetry, I found the experience... Psychedelic.
Anyway, I am now in a quandry: for I know not, whether to thank you, or Naruda, for the Surrealism of the Sonnet; so I say, thanks anyway, to both of you, for Writing and for Translating.
Regards, SHSB shahid.bukhari@gmail.com