And it was then
that with a tongue dead and cold in the mouth
he sang the song others allowed him to sing
in this world of obscene gardens and shadows
coming at unseemly hours to remind him
of songs of his youth
in which he could not sing the song he wanted
the song they allowed him to sing
yet through his absent blue eyes
through his absent mouth
through his absent voice.
Then from absence’s tallest tower
his song resonated in the opacity of what is hidden
in the silenced extension
full of moving hollowness like the words I write.
By: Alejandra Pizarnik @ Poetic Outlaws
Translator’s Note: Translation is home. Whenever I travel, I seek it either by reading translations, or by translating as a grounding exercise. Lately I have been translating into English poems from Jewish Latin American poets, specifically works by conversos or those written in Yiddish and Ladino by immigrants and their offspring. And—in a room of her own—Alejandra Pizarnik, whose life makes me think of Emily Dickinson. I recreated these two poems while visiting my mother, who has been suffering from Alzheimer’s. Pizarnik distills the fibers of existence so as to reveal the madness that palpitates underneath. Her poetry is contagious. The toughest part is to convey her silences. I wish I had met her. —Ilan Stavans
