17 mai 2011

Eurydice


A person has one body,
Singleton, all on its own,
The soul has had more than enough
Of being cooped up inside
A casing with ears and eyes
The size of a five-penny piece
And skin—just scar after scar—
Covering a structure of bone.


Out through the cornea it flies
Into the bowl of the sky,
On to an icy spoke,
To a wheeling flight of birds,
And hears through the barred window
Of its living prison-cell
The crackle of forests and corn-fields
The trumpet of seven seas.


A bodyless soul is sinful
Like a body without a shirt—
No intention, nothing gets done,
No inspiration, never a line.
A riddle with no solution:
Who is going to come back
After dancing on the dance-floor
Where there's nobody to dance?


And I dream of a different soul
Dressed in other clothes:
Burning as it runs
From timidity to hope,
Spiritous and shadowless
Like fire it travels the earth,
Leaves lilac behind on the table
To be remembered by.


Run along then, child, don't fret
Over poor Eurydice,
Bowl your copper hoop along
Whip it through the world,
So long as even quarter pitch
With cheerful tone and cold
In answer to each step you take
The earth rings in your ears.


Arseniy Tarkovsky
(Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair)

"When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life." 
Andrei Tarkovsky


Un comentariu:

Comentezi?