A new sonnet

A few weeks ago I gave a presentation to my literary translation class on the parallels between musical performance and translation (which I hope to write up as a blog post one of these days). I specifically focussed on the translation of poetry because, of all literary genres (other than theatre, I suppose), poetry is distinctive in that it really needs to be spoken aloud; in other words, performed.

I concluded my presentation by mentioning that writing poetry is a great way for translators (all writers, in fact) to hone their craft. The prof, not a poetry buff at all but eager to learn more about it, took up my call to arms (the pen, in this case) and "suggested" to the class that they all write a sonnet. There were many groans, and I think I may have made a few enemies, but I was happy for the excuse to put my poetry hat on again. Here's my effort, a first draft, really. It's a tribute to the wonderful musicians, and good friends, of Apollo's Fire, with whom I had the great pleasure of touring the Monteverdi Vespers last fall.

Evening Prayer on Green Mountain

We scale the green mountain this perfect day,
stand awestruck at its peak in black tailcoats,
long dresses. Like so many golden motes
adrift in the sky-vault, red echoes stray
in a sea of psalms. We sing to Mary, pray
that we can grasp the world—or just one note—
in our hands. To our children we devote
our lives, but they must always sail away.
Amidst all this, one person’s ecstasy:
I catch your eye across the altar—why speak
when words can only mean something when sung?
This is how we fabricate our legacy:
A tear for what we lost, for what we seek;
a smile for sharing music, nature’s tongue.

Elisabeth Bishop

I just realized that the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of my favourite poets, Elisabeth Bishop, passed a few days ago, on February 8th, without my realizing it. Her brilliant villanelle One Art is one of my very favourite poems. I never tire of reading it. It also inspired a quasi-villanelle of my own a few years ago, which I post here now, in honour of Elisabeth.

Lost and Found

It’s been a year for losing: fifteen pounds,

each misplaced one by one, though I feel sure

if I look hard enough they’ll all be found.

A dozen pens of meter and rhymes unsound,

whole stanzas gone to Euterpe’s allure.

It’s been a year for losing. I hung around

Rio but couldn’t spot the holy ground

where Liza lived—but oh what horse manure!

If I’d tried harder, it could have been found.

Then youth, who snuck away one night, unbound;

my heart still aches, however more mature

I am: it’s been a year for losing ground.

But one good thing, at least, one placid sound

did not take flight, though how is still obscure.

It’s been a year for losing, stumbling around;

yet somehow, here in the dark, you I found.

Music needs no tongue to speak,
just a tune to sing, a drum to beat,
a cadence come to rest at heaven’s gate,
though no one cares to enter
when so much joy is on the street.

Moonrise

I know the title is way hokey, but WTH. That IS what the poem is about, in one sense. Wrote this about a year ago but haven't dared to post it. I guess I'm ready to let the world see it now.

Moonrise

Arisen from our bed, still warm and close,
your presence comforts even as you leave
this place for good, a kindly smile that shows
you’ll always hang around. That look deceives
the innocent but lights my way: I streak
along your wake, forgetting in my haste
to dress--and so I turn the other cheek;
you seem surprised I could remain so chaste.
However chaste, I chase--farther, faster.
Come hither eyes melt into cold white stare,
laugh down on fools--dolts who’d court disaster
to glimpse your dark side. Thus I run. Though Mare
Tranquillitatis always was the goal,
I’ll never land there lest I lose control.

Tomb of the Kings

I think I've posted a version of this before, but I went through and made some fairly major changes. You can read the French original here.

I love this dream poem, with its almost cinematic imagery, by one of Quebec's truly great writers. It's so dark, so filled with sadness and bewilderment, yet, by the end, bears witness to the heart's miraculous optimism.

Tomb of the Kings
-Anne Hébert (Translation, Peter Garner)

My heart is at my fist.
Like a blind falcon.

The taciturn bird grips my fingers,
Lamp swollen with wine and blood,
I descend
Toward the tomb of the kings,
Astonished,
Only just born.

What thread of Ariadne leads me
Through soundless labyrinths,
Each step’s echo consumed as it sounds?

(In what dream
Was this child tied by the ankle
Like a spellbound slave?)

The dream maker
Grasps the thread,
And bare footsteps come

One by one
Like the first raindrops
At a well bottom.

Already, the odour moves in swollen storms
Oozes under doorsteps
To secret, round chambers
Where box beds lie.

Drawn by the reclining figures’ static desire,
I look with astonishment
Set into the black bones
Gleam encrusted blue stones.

A few tragedies patiently worked
Upon the breasts of recumbent kings
In the form of jewels
Are offered to me
With neither tears nor regrets.

Arranged in a line:
Smoke of incense, rice cake
And my trembling flesh:
Ritual, submissive offering.

The gold mask on my absent face
violets for pupils
Love’s shadow disguises me with meticulous strokes

And this bird I hold
Breathes
And laments strangely

A long shiver,
Like a wind that catches from tree to tree,
Stirs seven great ebony pharaohs,
In their solemn, ornate sheaths.

But it is only the depths of death lingering,
Playing out the last torment
Seeking appeasement
And eternity
In a light rattling of bracelets
Vain circlets playthings of another place
Around the sacrificed flesh.

Eager for the brotherly source of evil within me
They lay me down and drink of me;
Seven times I know the vise of bones
The dry hand that seeks to rend the heart.

Pale and filled with the awful dream
Limbs untangled
And the dead gone from me, murdered,
What glimmer of dawn could stray here?
Yet how, then, does this bird tremble
And turn its sightless eyes
Toward morning?

Wild Ginger

 It is enough—enough today it seems—
to stand rooted among these living spires,
knowing the shy wild ginger blooms close by,
leaves unfurled in this very air to breathe.

No need to seek the beech’s shade, to scan
the forest humus for its tell-tale heart-
shaped foliage, to push the leaves apart,
and touch the pungent rhizome with my hand;

or without thought to rip it from the ground,
transplant it to a sheltered garden plot
where it might grow but never flourish—not
enough could come of this to make it sound.

Such phantom-cleaving does no harm and fills
the void when ownership would only kill.

This loss is like a passing year,
a fading sun down earlier each day.
But memory is candied lime,
a taste mere water cannot wash away.

Look now through winter’s rime-etched pane,
sun sprawling in to light an empty page.
Your memory will wane with time,
and with it, wisdom come, a cage.

Halley's Comet

I am not the first to set eyes on this scene.
Over the course of life on this planet
some other sentient being has undoubtedly gazed
over the lake at sunset, with the wind just so.

Over the course of life on this planet,
I have come to cherish mergansers flying high
over the lake at sunset. With the wind just so,
I am sure they will come down here, on the bay

I have come to cherish. Mergansers flying high
are a sign of spring, and yes, like wild ginger
I am sure they will come. Down here on the bay,
in the full dark of the new moon, May showers

are a sign of spring. And yes, like wild ginger
flowers, they mostly pass unnoticed, blossoming
in the full dark of the new moon. May showers
fall from the tail of Halley’s Comet; modest

flowers, they mostly pass unnoticed, blossoming
discretely in the night sky, their sole purpose apparently to
fall from the tail of Halley’s Comet. Modest
observers of the heavens turn their heads

discretely in the night sky, their sole purpose apparently to
witness the fiery passage of dust grains in air.
Observers of the heavens turn their heads
now toward sunrise, as pollen dances in the dawn.

Witness the fiery passage of dust grains in air!
Some other sentient being will undoubtedly gaze
now toward sunrise, as pollen dances in the dawn:
I am not the last to set eyes on this scene.

Rio

Rio

In the movie of your memory
Rio envelops you like twilight
sneaking up slowly until night
falls and you are lost.

Lost in the aroma of roasting meat and passion
fruit juice, of piss and sweat, lost
in Christ’s eternal, concrete blessing.

But the truth is an abrupt assault,
a stunning cacophony of brake squeals,
unmuffled engines, taxi horns, the ubiquitous
dual roars of football fans and the Atlantic.

Rio intoxicates you, suddenly, with bittersweet
lime and sugar, orchid scent and warm sea air,
azalea and bougainvillea blossoms.

Bathes you in skeletal yearning, entices with the sense
that any thing can be, that music is all you need. Only
frigate birds and vultures indicate your peril,
but no one here looks at the sky.

Sonata in G

Sudden as a broken string, Scarlatti
materialized after you left this afternoon,
shimmering, there, on the claw-footed stool.

Tentative at first, he warmed to our piano,
foot heavy on the sustain pedal, hands
rising like laughter while arpeggios of gold dust
suspended gravity in a sunbeam. Then,

with a quill pulled from the air, and ink
flowing under the nib, he began to scratch out
a sonata in G—losing all notion of time in the allegro three-eight.

You find it on the stand upon your return
and play, perhaps more legato than he;
I listen, secretly pleased, and resist the urge to say
that he is standing behind the door, smiling.