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I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet.  The idea would be post a video every month for a ye...

Sunday, March 15, 2015

18. La encina

La encina, que conserva más un rayo
de sol que todo un mes de primavera,
no siente lo espontáneo de su sombra,
la sencillez del crecimiento, apenas
si conoce el terreno en que ha brotado.
Con ese viento que en sus ramas deja
lo que no tiene música, imagina
para sus sueños una gran meseta.
Y con qué rapidez se identifica
...

This 3rd section of Don de la ebriedad still blows my mind. I've re-learnt it many times since I first read it in the 80s to do my dissertation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have never read him or it and now see I must.

Note who I think he must have read, though.

Ventana

Un trozo azul tiene mayor
intensidad que todo el cielo,
yo siento que allí vive, a flor
del éxtasis feliz, mi anhelo.

Un viento de espíritus, pasa
muy lejos, desde mi ventana,
dando un aire en que despedaza
su carne una angélica diana.

Y en la alegría de los Gestos,
ebrios de azur, que se derraman…
siento bullir locos pretextos,
que estando aquí, ¡de allá me llaman!

This is Alfonso Cortés a late modernista and it was written while he was imprisoned, allegedly, in the room where Darío died, and could only see un trozo de azul from the window, not todo el cielo.

Anonymous said...

Also, that is really true about live oaks, how they conserve those rayos de sol.

In general, poetry so *rules* and people will not recognize this because it demands attention and requires meditation. And the people who say it is meaningless and too hard feel they are intellectually superior and more authoritative than those who do not.

I mean: people can say "I will not teach poetry, it is not necessary or interesting" and get away with it, but you could not get away with that for any other genre.