Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Analecxt 2.521x



30 June 2009. Gray sky...

Young couple, the dance--el triunfo--moving from a world of smiles and friends and dedications into a kind of enchantment--an unending awareness...and then return...


Triunfo de la llanura

He cambiado la rosa,
rosa precisa,
y me queda la vida,
la palomita,
la vida de la gente
que necesita
lo torcacita.

Me llegó la llanura
con horizonte,
desde el pie a la cintura
y todo el monte.
Los nidos me crecieron, las leñateras,
la vida entera.

Yo soy aquel que sufre
con la madera
los surcos, los inviernos,
la primavera.
Caramba con el triunfo
que no me deja
decir que siento mucho
que yo me muera,
la primavera.

La ternura me crece
país por medio,
este rulo de aire
que bailo y quedo,
que quedo y no me quedo
y si no puedo
es que me muero.

La paciencia es un arbol,
la casaurina,
es un té curativo,
un sapo al viento.
Caramba con la suerte
la rosa antigua
y que yo viva.


* * *


I have exchanged the rose
the very rose
and still I live on
little dove
the life of the people
that so need
the small dove.

The open plains have reached me
the horizon
from my feet to my waist
and all the open country.
The nests have flourished, the wood gatherers
all of life.

I am the one who suffers
with the wood
the furrows, the winters
the spring.
Caramba for the triunfo
that doesn't let me
say that I regret so much
that I may die,
the spring.

My affection increases
all across the land
this roll of air
that I dance and pause
pausing and moving again
and if I'm not able
it's that I die.

Patience is a tree
the casaurina,
a tea that cures
a country frog facing the breeze.
Caramba for this luck
this ancient rose
and that I live.

(Triunfo of the Open Plains, a song by Hamlet Lima Quintana)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Analect 2.520x



29 June 2009. El Cerrito pool, blue green in morning light, sliver swimmer shadows, shoulders, arms…

A line of fine wires, drawn along the parapet. Bird discouragement—towards what end? Protection of the newly shingled roof—or a human sensibility. Javed’s place, at dawn, with the bags of stale bread and cakes, scattering them all across the pavement. 7-eleven in its better days

Toda la noche despierto
Tan grande pena lloré.
Toma esta rosa,
Dame un clavel.

All through the night, awake
Such a great sadness I wept
Here, take this rose,
And give me a carnation in return…

(A gaucho copla, quoted from Carlos Alberto Leumann in El Poeta Creador.)

Friday, June 26, 2009

Analect 2.519x



26 June 2009. Sun breaking through...

The singer is Liliana Herrero, in the Casa de Gobierno in Buenos Aires. The song from a poem by José Goytisolo, Palabras para Julia...

Tú no puedes volver atrás
porque la vida ya te empuja
como un aullido interminable.

Hija mía es mejor vivir
con la alegría de los hombres
que llorar ante el muro ciego.

Te sentirás acorralada
te sentirás perdida o sola
tal vez querrás no haber nacido.

Yo sé muy bien que te dirán
que la vida no tiene objeto
que es un asunto desgraciado.

Entonces siempre acuérdate
de lo que un día yo escribí
pensando en ti como ahora pienso.

La vida es bella, ya verás
como a pesar de los pesares
tendrás amigos, tendrás amor.

Un hombre solo, una mujer
así tomados, de uno en uno
son como polvo, no son nada.

Pero yo cuando te hablo a ti
cuando te escribo estas palabras
pienso también en otra gente.

Tu destino está en los demás
tu futuro es tu propia vida
tu dignidad es la de todos.

Otros esperan que resistas
que les ayude tu alegría
tu canción entre sus canciones.

Entonces siempre acuérdate
de lo que un día yo escribí
pensando en ti como ahora pienso.

Nunca te entregues ni te apartes
junto al camino, nunca digas
no puedo más y aquí me quedo.

La vida es bella, ya verás
como a pesar de los pesares
tendrás amigos, tendrás amor.

Por lo demás no hay elección
y este mundo tal como es
será todo tu patrimonio.

Perdóname no sé decirte
nada más pero tú comprende
que yo aún estoy en el camino.

Y siempre siempre acuérdate
de lo que un día yo escribí
pensando en ti como ahora pienso.

***

Words for Julia

You cannot turn back
because life pushes you along
like an interminable howl.

My daughter, it is better to live
with the joys of mankind
than to weep before a blind wall.

You'll feel hemmed in
you'll feel lost or alone
maybe you'll wish not to have been born.

I know well what they'll tell you
that life has no point
that it's a wretched affair.

Then always remember
what I wrote you one day
thinking of you as I think of you now.

Life is beautiful, soon you'll see
how in spite of the troubles
you'll have friends, you'll have love.

A man alone, a woman
Taken alone, one by one
they are dust, they are nothing.

But when I speak to you
when I write you these words
I'm thinking of other people as well.

You destiny will be with the others
your future is your own life
your dignity is that of all.

Others hope you will resist
that your joy may help them
your song among their songs.

And then always remember
that which I wrote you one day
thinking of you as I do now.

Never give in nor set yourself apart
joined to the road, never say
I can no more and here I'll stay.

Life is beautiful, soon you'll see
how in spite of the troubles
you'll have friends, you'll have a love.

As for the rest there's no choice
and this world, just a it is
will be all of your patrimony.

Forgive me I know not what to tell you
nothing more but you, understand
that I am still on the road.

And always always remember
that which one day I wrote you
thinking of you as I think of you now.


(Liliana Herrero sings a version by Paco Ibañez, which differs slightly from the original poem.)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Analect 2.518x



25 June 2009. Morning gray...

From Leumann again, on dejo (accent):

"Los idiomas heredados atan, traban el juego de la expression popular, que quisiera ser libre. Pueblos y a veces razas enteras se subordinan de esta suerte a moldes vocales impuestos por un destino histórico. En cambio, el dejo lleva un indeterminado contenido de intención y sentimiento, que no encuentra estorbos, y sube a la superficie del habla. Por siertas tonalidades un pueblo suelta algo de su intimidad inenarrable y traduce su alma como con la música melódica. Importancia mayor que palabras argentinas, formadas casi siempre con raíces europeas, tiene sin duda el dejo gaucho, con sus hondas pausas, con su serenidad de campo y cielo."


"The inherited languages bind, hobble the play of popular expression, that would wish to be free. Peoples and at times even entire races are subordinated in this manner to vocal modes imposed by an historical destiny. By contrast, accent carries an indeterminant content of intention and sentiment, one that finds no impediment, and rises to the surface of speech. Through certain tonalities a people frees something of its ineffable intimacy and translates its soul with the music of melody. It is of prime importance that Argentine words, formed almost always from European roots, have without doubt the gaucho accent, with its deep pauses, its serenity of countryside and sky."

Carlos Alberto Leumann, La literatura gauchesca y la poesía gaucha, Buenos Ares, 1953.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Analect 2.517x



24 June 2009. Even gray skies...

Martín Fierro dice, acerca de cómo educan los indios al caballo:

El animal yeguarizo
(perdonenme esta advertencia)
es de mucho conocencia
y tiene mucho sentido;
es animal consentido,
lo cautiva la paciencia...

* * *

(The gaucho) Martín Fierro says, speaking of how the Indians tame a horse:

The animal of the horse clan
(forgive me this observation)
is of much conciousness
and has great understanding;
it is a creature of tolerance,
what wins it over is patience...

(quoted from Carlos Alberto Leumann, La Literatura Gauchesca y La Poesía Gaucha, Buenos Aires, 1953)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Analect 2.516x



23 June 2009. Juan Ortiz...

YO ADORO...

Yo adoro una mujer de aire.
La sentíamos bastante como el aire,
brillante o secreta esencia, ah, de lo que nos tocaba;
alma del tiempo, sí, más allá de las formas,
sin forma siempre como el aire?

Cuando la mujer de aire se va,
no, no me digáis que las flores son flores y que la luz es luz,
que la colina sube hacia la nubes y que la tarde baja hasta las aguas
y que el anochecer viene de espejos por las lejanas islas, por las islas...
Ni menos me digáis, oh, no me digáis, que la luna de julio se ha entibiado entre las ramas...

No, no me digáis nada, que cuando la mujer de aire se va
el aire, el aire?, es una asfixia oscura,
y hay manos, muchas manos, tendidas hacia nosotros desde otras sombras como raíces invertidas...

Pero verdad que la mujer de aire siempre vuelve?
—Siempre regresa, sí, pero no basta adorarla porque ella es la libertad.


I ADORE...

I adore a woman of air.
We have felt her much like the air itself,
brilliant or secret essence, ah, of that which has touched us;
spirit of time, yes, there beyond the forms,
without form always as the air?

When the woman of air departs,
no, don't tell me that the flowers are flowers, and that the light is light,
that the hill rises towards the clouds and that dusk comes down to the waters
and that nightfall arrives mirrored in the distant islands, in the islands...
Nor less tell me, oh, don't tell me, that the moon of July has turned mild amidst the branches...

No, don't tell me anything, that when the woman of air departs
the air, the air?, is a dark choking,
and there are hands, many hands, stretched out towards us from other shadows like roots inverted...

But is it true that the woman of air always returns?
--Always returns, yes, but it is not enough to adore her because she is freedom.

Juan L. Ortiz

Monday, June 22, 2009

Analect 2.515x



22 June 2009. Pleno verano, light air...

Tarde

El mundo es un pensamiento
realizado de la luz.
Un pensamiento dichoso.
De la beatitud, el mundo
ha brotado. Ha salido
del éxtasis, de la dicha,
llenos de sí, esta tarde,
infinita, infinita,
con árboles y con pájaros
de infancia ¿de qué infancia?
¿de qué sueño de infancia?


Afternoon

The world is a thought
made real out of light.
A joyful thought.
Out of beatitude, the world
has emerged. It has come forth
from ecstasy, from felicity,
full in themselves, this afternoon,
infinite, infinite,
with trees, with birds
of infancy--of what infancy?
of what dream of infancy?

Juan L. Ortiz


Note: The Spanish word dicha carries both the meaning of happiness and of luck, or good fortune, in the sense of fate--from the popular belief in pagan times that individual fortune followed from the words pronounced by the gods at the moment a child was born.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Analect 2.514x



19 June 2009. Summer skies... lo de verano...

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Analect 2.513x


13 June 2009. Even gray sky, pulsed with light...

Saer again--his evocative description of Juan L. Ortiz--Juanele--a poet from Entre Ríos, whose narrow face, narrow arms, wash of high wavey hair, sitting with a book, or a cat--or both at the same time--on long and narrow bench, mate with bombilla, also narrrow. A natural motif, as if to understand the spread of waters, the river--el Río Paraná--"Father of the Sea"...

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Analect 2.512x



12 June 2009. To the north, clouds, heavy and rolling, while above, intermittent puffs...

Nostalgias Santiagueñas... Adolfo Ábalos y su hermanos. "Pago donde nací / es la mejor querencia / Y más me lo recuerdo / me larga ausencia ay, ay, ay, sí, sí..." A beautifully lyrical line of melody, almost impossible to sing--because of the way each phrase falls away into a kind of reverie. Adolfo born in Buenos Aires--on the same block as Aníbal Troillo, the illustrious tango bandoneón master--but the family returned to Santiago when he was just a year old. A child of both worlds...

Here Vitillo, one of the younger brothers...bailando con Elvirita,

Tu sombra de mistol he'i buscar
cuando ya cansao de tanto andar,
Vuelva de nuevo al pago
a mi Santiago, ay ay ay, sí sí

* * *

The shade of your mistol tree I'll have to look for
when tired of so much roaming,
I return again to my home place
to my Santiago, ay, ay, ay, sí, sí...

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Analect 2.511x



11 June 2009. Gray skies.

Herb this morning, his white longshoreman's cap, yellowing at the edges, holding in both hands an inscribed photo from Harry Bridges, young guy behind ship's wheel, 1920's, barefoot, the Oakland docks...

Or yesterday afternoon, with Chuck--aboard Russkii Vek, the Russian Age, home port Leningrad, a red Soviet-era racing sloop, also worn, Sugar Wharf, Richmond... Oil tanks and grebes...

Other worlds. La Atamisqueña--Domingo Aguirre, the blind harp player with Andrés Chazarreta. Their first appearances in Buenos Aires, legendary. But now, in a highschool rec room, somewhere in the north--Chile rather than Argentina, dances from the same source. Chacarera y remedios. Without pretension...

Monday, June 08, 2009

Analect 2.510x



10 June 2009.

Hilda Herrera and Andrés Pilar, seated together at the piano, on a concert stage in Rosario, Argentina... She his teacher. Where the handing down becomes a kind of sharing--a love, if only in the most figurative sense. Affection, certainly, and the infinite recognition of the presence of another being. Nostalgias Santiagueñas, Adolfo Ábalos and his brothers...

"Todo empezó por Gardel. No nos gustó cómo cantaba un gato. Nos pareció que no llevaba ni el ritmo ni la melodía del verdadero gato, y pensamos que sería bueno hacerlo conocer a los porteños." (Adolfo Ábalos)

(It all began with Carlos Gardel. We didn't like the way he would sing a gato. It seemed to us that he carried neither the rhythm nor the melody of an authentic gato, and we thought it would good to make one known to the Porteños.)

Friday, June 05, 2009

Analect 2.509x



5 June 2009. Big clouds against runs of blue, interspersed, raked edges...

Gombrowicz in Buenos Aires, Ferdydurke. Saer: "...y Gombrowicz ha sostenido que, si no podían entenderse, era porque a Borges le interesaba la literatura y a él, Gombrowicz, únicamente la vida..."

Gombrowicz: "¿cúales eran mis oportunidades para entenderme con una Argentina intelectual al mismo tiempo que esteticista y filosofadora? Lo que me fascinaba en ese país eran los bajops fondos, pues allí me recibía por la alta sociedad. Yo estaba embrujado por la noche del Retiro, ellos por la CiudadLuz, París."

Ay, ay ay ay vi'a di'r parando
soy un criollo nada más
no vengo a buscar su aplauso
sólo quiero tu humandad.

Orlando Vera Cruz, Pilchas Gauchas

* * *

"...and Gombrowicz has maintained that, if the two of them were unable to understand one another--he and Borges--it was because Borges was interested in literature, and he, Gombrowicz, uniquely in life itself...."

"What were my opportunities to get along with an intellectual Argentina which was at the same time aesthete and philosophizer? What fascinated me in that country were the lower depths, for there I was received by high society. I was bewitched by the nighttime of Retiro, they by the City of Light, Paris."

Ay, ay ay ay let me tell you, coming to a close
I'm a criollo, nothing more
I'm not here to look for applause
I only want your brotherhood.

Orlando Vera Cruz, Gaucho Clothes)

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Analect 2.508x


4 June 2009. Damp air, summer...

Reading Saer, late. Meaning of Patagonia. "...y según ciertos autores el nombre aludiría de manera más verosímil, a la pobreza de los indios, derivándole del término patacón, originariamente moneda portuguesa de poco valor, término empleado corrientemente en el río de la Plata hasta el siglo pasado y que subsiste todavía como vocablo popular para designar, por arquaísmo irónico, el dinero..."

José Larralde: "pa qué juntar patacones si el saco tiene un aujero".

***

("...and according to certain authors the name (Patagonia) alludes most accurately to the poverty of the Indians, derived from the term patacón, originially a Portuguese coin of little value, and a term currently employed in the region of the Río de La Plata into the last century and one that still subsists as a popular word to designate, through an ironic archaism, the notion of money..."

José Larralde: "and why put together your patacones if the sack itself has a hole..."

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Analect 2.507x



3 June 2009. Early morning rain, pouring through birch leaves...

Mendoza y San Juan. Fiesta familiar. Cast iron pot, tended over outdoor fire. Puchero--a country stew. Man in white, reversed cap, moustache. Fragment of car amidst dusty trees, bicycle leaning in the shade. Racima de uvas. The usual, a documentary--except that these folks are not actors. Woman's face, older, high cheekbones, narrowed mouth over absent teeth. Calm in white, birdlike for a moment, smoking. Voices in the background, story of the gathering gradually brought forth, country accents, music always just behind. Una tonada...

"Y no pueden cantar cueca, aún menos tonada... con la garganta seca, era tragito el único que faltaba..."

* * *

(One certainly can't sing a cueca, much less a tonada, when the throat is dry...so, a little drink, that's all that was lacking...)

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Analect 2.506x



2 June 2007. Gray morning, rain on sloping glass. Damp street...

Sommer, dunkelgrau. In Berlin with Omar Dubrosky, Magdeburg, at the Kaffehaus Köhler. An orpheus figure, reborn in Rosario, Argentinien. "...de los de gacho ladeado," the slouch hat, or was it "gaucho judío"--Gerchunoff's tribe, transplanted to Entre Ríos...surcos y bueyes, trigo, pantanal...

Rerouted to Berlin, already 20 years, guitar intact, the tangos and the milongas now twice removed--a gauzy white curtain, summer light, singing of plain blond woman with forthright glasses just to his side. Adaptations, wafts of Brecht, power of the will...

Monday, June 01, 2009

Analect 2.505x



1 June 2005. Begins June...gray, lovely...

"Si me voy de mayo a junio, si vuelvo de junio a mayo no me cabe en los dos puños toda la furia que traigo..." (If I go from May to June, if I return from June to May, even in my two fists I can't carry all my fury...)

Armando Tejada Gómez, an enchanted figure in a dark suit, declaiming his "Oration to the Flag,"

Quédate en el cielo, amor,
no bajes.
Aquí abajo, los grises
son tan grises
que, de algún modo gris,
van a ultrajarte.

Y sos tan linda allá,
tan nomeolvides,
-simple ademán de madre
por el aire-
que si caes, amor,
con la ternura
conque caen las hojas
de los árboles;
si llegas a caer,
acaso nunca
vuelvas a ser tan cielo
ni tan madre.

Déjanos a nosotros,
los humildes,
los que nunca te usamos
ni abusamos de tu inmenso
silencio planetario,
que cuidemos la altura
donde habitas,
celestemente hermosa,
como el aire.

Déjanos a nosotros.
De los otros,
es piadoso no hablarte.

Buenos Aires, 1977 Armando Tejada Gómez, Oración a la bandera


* * *

Oration to the Flag

(Stay up there in the sky, my love
don't come down.
Here below, the grays
are so very gray
that, in some gray way,
they will mistreat you.

And you are so beautiful up there,
so don't-forget-me,
the simple gesture of a mother
in the air--
for if you fall, my love
with the tenderness
with which fall the leaves
of the trees;
if you come to fall,
perhaps never
will you return to be such a sky
nor such a mother.

Leave it to us,
the humble ones,
those, we, who never use you
nor abuse your immense
planetary silence,
that we might guard the heights
that you inhabit,
celestially beautiful,
like the air.

Leave it to us.
Of the others,
to you it is pious not to speak.

Buenos Aires, 1977, Armando Tejada Gómez)