June, a Poem, from "Jersey Blues, Selected Poems"

"A Garden in Montmartre", oil on canvas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1880-1890

June  

 

In the low, reddening sun,
the sweet smelling fields lay bare,
and the wind caresses them as a mother.

I smell the young Summer,
a child-like hypothesis of woman.

It quivers your hand in mine
and your laugh is a soft
whisper that finds no peace.

Princeton, New Jersey, June 2005

From the collection Jersey Blues, also available on Amazon Kindle, iBookstore and NOOK Book.

Das nächste Dorf, from "Ein Landarzt", by Franz Kafka. Version in English (The next village, from "A Country Doctor") e in italiano (Il villaggio vicino, dalla raccolta "Un medico di campagna"), 1919

 "A Country Doctor" (Ein Landarzt), Pic: Yamamura Animation, Inc.

"Thin, without fever, not cold, not warm, with empty eyes, without a shirt, the young man under the stuffed quilt heaves himself up, hangs around my throat and whispers in my ear, "Doctor, let me die."

— from Franz Kafka's "A Country Doctor"

My grandfather used to say: "Life is astonishingly short. Now, in my remembrance, it dwindles itself to such an extent, that for example, I can hardly comprehend how a young man can decide to ride to the next village without fearing that - notwithstanding unfortunate accidents - even the time of an ordinary, happy life is for such a ride far from sufficient."

Version in English, by LiteraryJoint

Original German text: 

Mein Großvater pflegte zu sagen: »Das Leben ist erstaunlich kurz. Jetzt in Erinnerung drängt es sich mir so zusammen, daß ich zum Beispiel kaum begreife, wie ein junger Mensch sich entschließen kann, ins nächste Dorf zu reiten, ohne zu fürchten, daß - von unglücklichen Zufällen ganz abgesehen - schon die Zeit des gewöhnlichen, glücklich ablaufenden Lebens für einen solchen Ritt bei weitem nicht hinreicht.«

F. Kafka, Ein Landarzt, 1919


Versione in Italiano, by LiteraryJoint:
Il villaggio vicino, dalla raccolta "Un medico di campagna", 1919

À minha mãe, To My Mother, by Antônio Álvares de Azevedo, in English (Lira dos Vinte Anos)

Antônio Álvares de Azevedo (1831-1852) was a Brazilian Romantic poet and writer, playwright and essayist.

 

To my mother

by Antônio Álvares de Azevedo, 1853
Published posthumously in the collection Lira dos Vinte Anos.

Like the flowers of a sylvan tree
Shed their petals on the furrow that gave life
To its fruitless branches,
Oh my sweet mother, onto your breast
Allow that from this pale
Corolla of my fantasies
I too shed the cold, scentless,
Flowers of my existence, wilted flowers
Whose dew is only weeping!


Translated in English by LiteraryJoint

Original version in Portuguese:

The Poems of Trieste and Five Poems for the Game of Soccer by Umberto Saba (eBook) - A selection of some of the best poetry by Italian Master Umberto Saba, translated in English

Book cover, Copyright © 2013 Alessandro Baruffi ISBN: 978-1-304-03092-4

                                 

Today, Umberto Saba (pseudonym of Umberto Poli, 1883–1957) is widely recognized as one of the most prominent European poets of the 20th century. Born in the cosmopolitan port town of Trieste, under the Austro-Hungarian rule, in his youth, Saba struggled with hardship and poverty. After quitting his commercial studies, he joined the mercantile marine, and later the army, enlisting in the infantry regiment. While Saba successfully published his work for over three decades enjoying very favorable reception by critics, he remained an outsider to the Italian literary establishment. Following anti-Semitic laws and persecution, he migrated to Paris, returning to Italy only in 1943, where he remained under cover until the end of World War II. His verses, tinged with melancholy and filled with compassion for the world's misery, are expressed in a language characterized by a sophisticated simplicity: light and rich of everyday words, yet musical and profound in poetic effect.

Available as e-book on Amazon Kindle, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, NOOK Book  , Kobo and on Lulu. 

Minha Mãe (A Poem, Portuguese)

   Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, Whistler's Mother, 1871,
James McNeill Whistler, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Minha Mãe

Ela està  assim, o olhar
direito para minha infelicidade:
tão triste, calado, meu eterno lar.

E eu assim, olhando para ela
de olhos baixos, pedindo desculpas
pela minha tristeza e a dela.

Minha mãe, indo me olhando a cada dia
de minha vida, tentando vasculhar
o fundo porão de minha alma sombria.

Me olhando sem falar, sem pedir 
nem nada querer, com os seus olhos
cheios de perdão, as ternas mãos fracas, 
e as minhas, que tenho medo de estender.     

Copyright © 2013 LiteraryJoint

The Ancient Lament, by Giosue Carducci, English Translation (Pianto Antico, Rime Nuove)

"Rime Nuove", by G. Carducci, cover 1887
www.casacarducci.it - copyright © 2005

The Ancient Lament, by Giosue Carducci, from New Rhymes, 1887

 

The tree you used to reach

your infant's hand out to,

the verdant pomegranate

with pretty vermilion flowers,

in the mute solitary orchard

has now just turned green

for June is restoring it

with light and warmth.

You, blossom of my own
shaken and parched tree,

you, of my vain life

ultimate and only flower,

lay in the chilly ground,

lay in the black ground;

neither can the sun gladden you

nor love awaken you again.

Translated by LiteraryJoint

Original version in Italian:

Amongst all Things I Cherish You Most, a Poem

Edvard Munch, Separation, 1900, Edvard Munch Gallery

Amongst all things I cherish you most:

silent, deserted tracks,

paths winding steeply up

to the hazy tops, murmurs of footsteps

muffled by silent slopes,

ascensions to sylvan hermitages.

When the first snow
shuts all man within their weary
dwellings, then even the timid fox
sticks its head out of the woods,
sniffing with its pointed nose the air
in the scant November dusk.   

Similarly a vagrant finds some peace
and no longer despairs in his wandering,
when the blackening earth closes the corolla
of the horizon, and like ancient weeping,
the oblivious, sooty sky
is a mute blanket, unutterable.       

Copyright © 2013 LiteraryJoint
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