Poetic Creativity

Translation Theory

Ryan and Don Roger

15

Translation Theory
(revised 3 May 2026)

            In DQI, IX, Cervantes, in his role of first-person narrator, goes to the Alcana in Toledo, where he discovers an Arabic manuscript containing the adventures of Don Quixote. The first eight chapters of our novel contain no mention of a translator. Suddenly one appears. The narrator buys the manuscript, finds a translator, takes the translator to his house, and in six weeks receives a translation, from Arabic into Spanish, of the novel. Question – does the translation contain Chapters 1-8, already written by Cervantes, or not? Alas, we do not know. Is the translation accurate? We do not know that either, for the original Arabic manuscript is a literary illusion and does not exist.

            However, we do know that Cervantes writes that ‘reading a translation is like looking at the reverse side of a tapestry’. Speaking of the Italian poet, Boiardo, the priest, in DQI, 6, says “If I find him here speaking in any language but his own I shall show him no respect. But if he speaks his own tongue, I will wear him next to my heart.” The priest continues, “That is what happens with all authors who translate poetry into other languages. However much care they take, and however much skill they show, they can never make their translations as good as the original.”

            Of course, with no original for the Quixote, there can be no translation theory. So, let us try to construct one. In the course of my own work, I have studied various translations of Quevedo’s poem Miré los muros de la patria mía. I will use them to see how translations can function, and what happens when we look at the reverse side of the tapestry. First, Quevedo’s poem in the original Spanish. Then a direct, line by line translation of it, for those who do not read Spanish.

Miré los muros de la patria mía,
si un tiempo fuertes, ya desmoronados,
de la carrera de la edad cansados,
por quien caduca ya su valentía.

Salíme al campo, vi que el sol bebía
los arroyos del yelo desatados,
y del monte quejosos los ganados,
que con sus sombras hurtó su luz al día.

Entré en mi casa; vi que, amancillada,
de anciana habitación era despojos;
mi báculo más corvo y menos fuerte;

vencida de la edad sentí mi espada.
Y no hallé cosa en que poner los ojos
que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte.

            I looked at the walls of my fatherland, (line 1) if once strong, now crumbling, (line 2) from the passing of age tired, (line 3) which wears out their bravery. (line 4) I went out to the field, saw that the sun was drinking (line 5) the streams from the ice untied, (line 6) and of the hill complaining the herds, (line 7) whose shadows stole the light of day. (line 8) I entered my house; I saw that, stained, (line 9) of an ancient habitation it was the spoils; (line 10) my cane more curved and less strong; (line 11) conquered by age I sensed my sword. (line 12) And I didn’t find a thing on which to turn my eyes (line 13) that was not a reminder of death. (line 14).

            This very literal translation, with all its inaccuracies and its inability to express the hidden cultural depths of the original, is totally unpoetic and inadequate, compared to the genius of the original version. Other prose translations have been offered by J. M. Cohen and Elías Rivers, and they are much more accurate – and much better (!), than mine.

            Brave poetic translations, also at times somewhat distant from the original, have been published by Robert Lowell, David Gitlitz, and Griswald Morley / Charles Cobb revising the version of John Masefield. Alas, I do not have permission to replicate their versions. However, I called the translations ‘inadequate’, but they aren’t really they are just the best we can do. Robert Lowell, himself an outstanding poet, gave us much more than a translation. He gave us what I like to think of as a recreation, a new poem based upon the old original. Translations and re-creations, two very different kettles of fish! I offer you here two of my own efforts at recreating the poem!

1

I looked at the defenses of my native land:
empty silos, bombs and rockets melted down.
“Put your faith,” the TV said, “in diplomacy,
not in the metal walls of flying ships.” I went

outside. Cattle were lowing against the falling
temperature, tails to the wind. Steam
rose from their flanks, then was scattered
like an overnight dream of ghosts. Inside,

on the sink, a shrivelled tea bag, dried up stains;
my trusty coffee pot, rusty on the stove,
was chipped and raw at the rim. I took

my shot gun in my hand. Its crooked barrels
served me as a walking-stick. As I limped
around, my mother’s photo spoke to me of death.

2
I’ve got something to say, so here’s what I’ll do
I’ll write it out in rap with a rhythm just for you.
I once saw a town with a very small wall
that’s so fallen down it’s no wall at all.
It’s old and it’s rotten and it cannot last
like a runner on the track who’s run too fast
at the start of the race, and he’s run out of breath,
so he’s hit that wall, and he feels like death.
And there’s cattle lowing and the sun’s in the sky
but it’s winter time, so the sun’s not high,
and the shadows are long, and the wind’s getting cold,
and it’s all about a man who’s growing old.
He looks around his house and all he sees
are dead people’s faces and living memories.
He’s trapped on the ground floor, can’t climb stairs,
everything he touches he’ll leave to his heirs.
There’s a pain in his side, and he can’t catch his breath,
and all that he sees, reminds him of death!

            A rap sonnet (14 lines) containing nine pairs of rhymed couplets (18 lines)? The good Don Francisco de Quevedo will be turning in his grave and his still-warm ashes will once again be burning with love for Lisi and the joy of being alive, in one form or another, in spite of the River Styx, which the flame of his love could swim and not be lost forever.

            So, when looking at translation theory, what can we set down? First, it is very difficult to capture the full cultural meaning of the original because each word has an associative field that differs in each language. The associative field is the word itself, with all its secondary meanings and concepts. Mi espada / my sword is an excellent example. Quevedo, in spite of his infirmities, was a master swordsman. His sword remained unconquered, save by age itself. We no longer walk around with swords sheathed at our sides. The meaning, therefore, in all its sadness and profundity, cannot be captured by our translation skills. The words just do not have the weight.

            The grammatical structures, inversion of words, for example, cannot easily be reproduced in English translation.  Line 3 – from the passing of age tired – just doesn’t sound right. And yet, it is curiously accurate – but not English. Oh dear. Line 6 – the streams from the ice untied – Line 7 – of the hill complaining the herds – Line 10 – of an ancient habitation it was the spoils – no, sorry, these inversions just do not function in English.

            In addition, the rhythm and the syllable count of each line of the original is lost in translation. Whatever you say about it, the rhythm of my rap sonnet emphasizes the importance of beat and tempo. Great fun to read aloud, and when reading it to an audience, watch their faces and then their feet. I have actually seen some listeners tap-dancing during my reading! And the scowls of those who cannot believe the impertinence of a translator who translates into rap music the classical lines of a poetic genius. Finally, the rhyme scheme will almost always defeat the would-be translator who approaches it as a target, while never quite mastering the reproductive technique, other than approximation. The structure of Quevedo’s original rhyme scheme is 14 hendecasyllabic (eleven syllable) lines rhyming abba / abba / cde / cde.  This is all very difficult to reproduce in English with its eternal iambic pentameter. Therefore, we must be satisfied, like it or not, with the reverse side of the tapestry, as Cervantes calls it.

Tales Within A Tale

Open book with glowing three-dimensional fantasy map showing mountains, forest, castles, and sea with ships and lighthouses.
A magical book opens to reveal a glowing 3D map with mountains and sea landscapes.

Image generated by AI

Ryan and Don Roger

14

Tales within a Tale

            Don Quixote, the novel, is a tale that tells the story of Don Quixote and his adventures. While the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and their delightful dialogs are the essence of the story, other stories abound. These ‘other stories’ are known, in academia, as the intercalated novels. They are tales told of and by other characters within the main history of the adventures of the ingenious hidalgo. While the characters within some of these intercalated novels mix at one level or another into the story of Don Quixote, some of them do not.

            The Tale of Foolish Curiosity, DQI, XXXIII / 33 -XXXV / 35, has very little to do with the story of Don Quixote, other than the fact that our knight is present in the inn while the tale is being told. We know that in Italy, Boccaccio’s Decameron, was a key player in the genre of story-telling. Our friends at AI tell us that “the Decameron is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men. They are sheltering in a secluded villa outside Florence to escape the Black Death. No television, no radio. They amuse themselves by telling stories. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons also contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, it provides a document of life at the time. It is considered a masterpiece of early Italian prose.”

            What is The Tale of Foolish Curiosity doing in the Quixote?One suggestion is the hinge theory – the tale links thematically to the ideas expressed in the Quixote. We have just met several intercalated novels in which the theme of love plays a major role. The Tale of Foolish Curiosity is a psychological novel, written in the Italianate style favored by Cervantes, that explores the theme of folly in love. A second theory is that The Tale of Foolish Curiosity is there merely for entertainment. A third is that it is there to demonstrate Cervantes’s writing skills. Whichever reason pleases us most, and all can be equally true, we know from DQ2, III /3, that not every reader was happy with the inclusion of this tale in DQI.

            In this chapter, Sampson Carrasco, the Bachelor, tells us that “One of the faults they find in this history … is that the author inserted a novel called The Tale of Foolish Curiosity – not that it is bad or badly told, but because it is out of place and has nothing to do with the story of his worship Don Quixote.” In response, our knight replies “Now I believe that the author of my story is no sage but an idle chatterer.” The Tale of Foolish Curiosity is the only intercalated novel criticized in this fashion. Let us take a brief look at the others.

            The story of Chrysostom and Marcela (DQI, XII, XIII, XIV) involves our knight errant, for the characters in the intercalated novel, interact with Don Quixote, Marcela, in particular. When she wishes to leave the scene, the young men who love her and follow her against her will wish to follow her, but Don Quixote defends her, and prohibits their pursuit of the shepherdess. In similar fashion, the tale of Cardenio and Lucinda is woven into the narrative of Don Quixote’s adventures, Cardenio appearing in DQI, XXIII, XXIV, and again in XXVII. The first meeting between them (DQI, XXII) is justly famous. Two foolish people, the Ragged Knight and the Knight of the Sad Countenance, meet, embrace, and look deeply into each others mad eyes.

            Almost immediately (DQI, XXVIII), Dorothea appears on the scene and starts to tell the tale of her own misfortunes. They are interwoven with the tale of Cardenio and Lucinda, although they are not aware of it. Dorothea learns of the plot to deceive Don Quixote and bring him back to his village and willingly agrees to play the part of a distressed lady in search of a knight errant to rescue her. Don Quixote accedes to her request.  When they spend the night at an inn, first they hear The Tale of Foolish Curiosity and the captive, recently escaped from Algiers, appears and tells his tale (DQII, XXXIX, XL, XLI). Yet more adventures occur at the inn, and several more characters weave their own tales into the tale of Don Quixote.

            Two clear patterns emerge. (1) Tales that are independent in their majority, of the knight’s story. (2) Tales that are interwoven closely with the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. This style of events changes in DQII, after the intervention of ten years (1605-1615) during which Cervantes receives and processes feedback from his many readers. As we will see when we get there, Don Quixote and Sancho become the key figures in what will become the first self-referring novel (more about that later), and all the tales told within DQII will be woven into the stories of what will become, thanks to the split narrative, our two adventurers.

            Meanwhile, in 1613, Cervantes published his Novelas ejemplares, a collection of twelve short stories (novellas) that showcase his mastery of narrative beyond Don Quixote. These tales range from realistic depictions of 17th-century Spanish life to idealized, romantic adventures, designed to offer both entertainment and moral instruction. Some critics have speculated that Cervantes might have been thinking of including these novels is an expanded version of Don Quixote. However, if he did have that idea, he certainly abandoned it, given his own criticism of The Tale of Foolish Curiosity. I think, given the quality and expanded dimensions of DQII (1615), we can all be happy that he abandoned that idea!

Phoenix

Phoenix

for my dear friend
whose house burned down

the day my house burned down
nothing to say – nothing to do
the smoke reek stays with me still
my house on the hill overlooking the sea

it meant the world to me – I stood there
just stood – no words – no prayer – ashes
still hot burned through the soles of my shoes
shoe sole – body soul – all of me burned

invisible the scars – not fire burned
like the faces of Spitfire pilots
on fire from burning engine oil
deformed faces – nightmares one and all

the burn ward – grafting – rehabilitation
new skin replaced the old – inch by inch
so slow – not swift like fire – pilots
ashamed to be seen – hiding – afraid

the house – brick and concrete chimney
still standing – roof – windows – doors – gone
furniture flame devoured – I’m no coward
but I couldn’t face the heat – too hot –

now – in my mind’s eye – I look out and see
and what do I see – I see the blue-eyed sea
I see the house foundations – standing strong
I see my new house growing like a tree

old roots dig deep – a silver photo – framed
spared somehow from fire and flame
a diamond sparkling amid ash and dust
gold gone – the diamond sparkling on

will I have the will to rebuild – to till
the garden anew – the sundial standing still
counting only the happy hours – asleep
life’s storms and showers – closing it down

and this I know – rebuilding may be slow
but as sure as the sun will shine – the sundial
will awake – the phoenix will be reborn
from the flame – the house will rise again

Nights

Nights

There are nights
when the trees
seem to whisper
your name,

cautioning you
against the wind’s
knife edge.

“What have I done,”
you ask,
“to merit this?”

The soft fall
of burnt brown leaves
weeps over
your woodland grave.

You will walk
these woods
no more, save
on a frosty night

when deer shiver
beneath naked trees
and the moonbeam’s
icy blade.

Comment:

Poems arrive, as silent as the deer that troop through my garden. Some times they hurry past, and catch them if you can. Sometimes, they stay, wait, nibble at an overhanging branch. Just when you think you can reach out and grasp them, they sense the bark of a dog, the sigh of the wind through leafless trees. You blink, and they have gone.

Was your camera ready? Was your note book open, your pen in your hand? Or did they flit away like dreams in the morning when the sun comes into the bedroom and sparks diamond fires from the lashes that guard your eyes?

Rage, Rage 48


Rage, Rage
48

I carry memories
and scars like a snail
wears its shell
and I leave behind me
a slither of silver words.

I’m a broken gramophone,
needle stuck in a groove
repeating the same verses
again and again.
This repetition
drives me insane.

My thoughts just drift.
My body is a ship
in the doldrums,
no wind to fill its sails.

I pick up my paint brush
and paint myself –
lonely and blue
as idle as a long-lost lamb,
alone with nothing to do.

Comment:

The alienation of an alien nation – and I wonder if they really are here, those aliens. So many strange happenings in my life. The silver slither of words drags me through so many lost moments in time. Fray Luis de León, I spoke to him last night, asked me the question – “Es más que un breve punto / este bajo y torpe suelo comparado / con aquel gran transunto / do vive mejorado / todo lo que es, lo que será, lo que ha pasado?”

It’s a lovely verse in Spanish, but not so easy to translate into English. Let’s try – first, word for word – “Is it more than a small dot this low and stupid soil compared with that great sky world where now lives improved all that is, all that will be, and all that has happened?”

A comment on the translation – first, the length of the sentence and the way in which it is complicated by inversions and ideas expressed in words which have little direct translation. Then there is the expression – 1. a small dot – un breve punto – a short moment in time. 2. low and stupid soil – este bajo y torpe suelo – clumsy earth below. That clarifies, a little the meaning. 3. that great sky world – aquel gran transunto – that great sky above. 4. where – do [short for donde – to keep the syllable count] – where – 5. lives improved – vive mejorado – lives a better life.

Here goes: “Is this clumsy earth below more than a short moment in time compared with that great sky above where now lives a better life all that is, all that will be, and all that has happened?” Not great, but we can live with it.

As Miguel de Cervantes said “To read in translation is to look at the reverse side of a tapestry.” So, to imagine the real side of the tapestry we need to count our syllables – they don’t match. We need to measure the length of our lines. They don’t match. We need to sharpen our metaphors and images – they don’t really match. And, last but not least, we have to imagine the Platonic, Terra-Centric universe in which the sun moves around the earth and the earth is the centre of all life.

I should add the cultural association of words. In every language, each word has an “associative field of cultural meanings”. Those “associative fields” differ from language to language. So, even getting the verbal meaning correct means that you do not necessarily get the cultural associations right. In fact, it’s almost impossible to do so. It’s a fascinating world and one which I have explored in various academic articles.

I would like to take cultural meanings a step further. In Don Quixote, II, 11 – I quote from J. M. Cohen’s Penguin translation of 1950 (rpt 1961) – Don Quixote says to Sancho ” … if I remember rightly, you said that she [Dulcinea] had eyes like pearls, and eyes like pearls suit a sea-bream better than a lady” (p. 533). I will leave aside, for now, Sancho’s comic mixing of the Petrarchan metaphors and concentrate on the single word sea-bream. To compare someone’s eyes to those of a sea-bream is comical in English. However, the word has several associative fields in Spanish which are worthy of deeper study. Secondary meanings of a sea-bream – besugo – include 1. a mild insult, as in no seas besugo / don’t be a fool / an idiot / stupid. 2. Diálogo de besugos – two people talking and neither one listening to the other. 3. Ojos de besugo – a blank or dazed expression. Quite simply, the translation besugo > sea-bream functions at the literal level, but by no means at the cultural level of the associative fields.

Alas, some days I’m a broken gramophone, needle stuck in a groove, repeating the same things again and again. Maybe one day I will get them right. And maybe I won’t. Better minds than mine have struggled with translating Spanish (poetry) into English (poetry), and most have failed. Many, dismally. We won’t mention names. Sometimes the best translations are not translations at all, but poems that recreate the original in the target language. I am quite happy with my translation of the meaning of Fray Luis de León’s poem – but how sad would be any attempt to transfer the verse form from Spanish to English? Five lines of seven and eleven syllables each – wow! Go for it. But remember – fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Never mind. Maybe tonight I’ll have another little chat with Fray Luis de León and Miguel de Cervantes, Quevedo too, if I am lucky. Maybe their English will be good enough to give me a few hints. I’ll let you know later if any one of them does come to visit.

Crystal Liturgy

I

Crystal Liturgy

Here, in the abyss,
where song-birds pluck their notes
and send them, feather-light,
floating through the air,
here, you’ll find no vale of tears,
no fears of shadow-hawks,
for all blackness is abandoned
in the interests of sunlight and song.

Here, the crystal liturgy surges,
upwards from the rejoicing heart,
ever upwards, into the realms of light,
where color and sound alike
brim over with the joy that, yes,
brings release to head and heart.

Here, seven-stringed rainbows reign,
the everlasting harp is tuned and plucked,
and an eternity of music cements
the foundations of earth and sky.

Here, the master musician conducts
his celestial choir, their voices rising,
higher and higher, until they reach
the highest sphere, and song and voice
inspire, then expire, passing from our eyes
and ears into unbounded realms of light.

Here, the seven trumpets will sound
their furious dance, a dance that will announce
the end of this singer, the end of his song,
but never the end of song itself.

Commentary:

Crystal Liturgy is the first poem in the poetry sequence Septets for the End of Time. I will start placing these poems here and you can follow the sequence as it evolves. It consists of 56 poems – seven septets and a coda.

A Note for Readers

Olivier Messiaen is one of my favorite composers. I purchased his Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Quartet for the End of Time in Rimouski, PQ, in 1982 while driving around the Gaspé Peninsula. I was fascinated both by the music and by the words that headed each section. I should note that I have always enjoyed ekphrasis, the verbal description of visual works of art. With Messiaen, I tried to recreate not only the thoughts and images generated in me by his music, but the spaces and repetitions that come from light and dark sounds and birdsong caught in the intervals between notes. This was a new sphere of experimental writing for me and while composing I played first the Quatuor pour la fins du temps / Quartet for the End of Time, then Éclairs sur l’au-delà/ Lightning above the Beyond, and finally Petites esquisses d’oiseaux / Little Sketches of Birds. What I tried to capture came from within my own mind, but the metaphors and images were inspired by listening to Messiaen’s music.

Carved in Stone 58

Carved in Stone
58

Modern shamans
roam the pyramid’s flat top,
looking for its energy point,
not knowing that, seated,
peacefully in silence,
that power will seek them out.

The more they seek,
the less they find,
yet that power seeks me out,
because I no longer seek it.
Is that the secret of creativity?

Commentary:

A long time ago my judo instructor taught me the following –

“The more you strive,
you cannot grasp it,
the hand cannot hold it,
nor the mind exceed it.
When you no longer seek it,
it is with you.”

It was the same with the St. John Ambulance course that I took. The instructor told us that we might not remember now exactly what we were doing, but if the occasion arose, everything we were practicing now would appear before us and we would just do it, knowing exactly what to do. A rugby coach, I saw and met and solves several such injuries on the field of play. Something took me over and I did what I had to do.

I still don’t know how or why. But it is the same with creativity. “When you no longer seek it, it is with you.”

Just breathe deep and believe.



Two New Poems

Two New Poems

1

My Words

My words are black print
on white paper.
My memories flare
 – an aurora borealis of senses
sent crackling down the spine,
in and out of the mind,
tumbling the brain into a world
 … what sort of world?

An unimaginable world.
One never forgotten.
One never re-recreated.
One that never existed.
One that never could exist.
One for which the young child,
six or seven years old,
yearns for the rest of his life.
His unsatisfied life.
His unsatisfying life.
His meaningless life.
His absurd life.

2

Puppy

Oh, pity the poor puppy,
not knowing
 what he has done wrong,
not knowing
how to put things right,
always inadequate,
always in fear
of the angry word,
the quick, sly kick,
the vicious blow,
whining and cringing
at his master’s feet.

“Into your box!”

And always,
that cold puppy bed,
often soiled,
 where the long, chill snakes
of frail, wriggling dreams,
remind him of
the next day’s
punishment.

Commentary:

Both these poems evolved from the comments I made yesterday to my blog post. I have started noticing that those words, beneath the poems, sometimes have a rhythm and a magic all to themselves. I guess it is a little bit of the unconscious slipping upwards and spilling out.

Discovered poems – I never set out to write these two poems. When I re-read my commentary, I thought ‘wow, there’s a poem in there”, and I found not one, but two new poems. Interesting. As I age, I discover something new every day. What a wonderful world it is, unless, like earlier this week, I discover my tap leaking and am forced to call my friend, the plumber, into my water world. Alas, if only that tap were tapped into a maple tree and it weas spring once more. Ah well, I am a dreamer, I can always dream.

Carved in Stone 16 & 17

16

The Bulls of Guisando,
pre-historic, unweighable,
the bearers of Roman graffiti,
itself two thousand years old.

Were they carved as boundary markers,
or designed to designate pastures,
for horses, pigs, sheep, and bulls,
all grazing in their stone dreams?

Celtic, pre-Roman,
they speak to my Welsh blood,
and to the Irish soul
that will always be a part of me.

I place my hand
on the dimpled granite hide
and feel time coursing
beneath the stone skin.

Granite ships,
islands in a sea of time,
I sense a heart beating,
something surviving
within the stone.

17

We are powerful people,
we creative artists,
we carvers of stone,
we dreamers,
whether we dream
by day or by night.

Those of us
who dream by day,
often see our day-dreams
come true.

Commentary:

“Those of us who dream by day, often see our day-dreams come true.” Lawrence of Arabia – The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. You recognized the quote of course, wrth gwrs. Intertextuality, the weaving of words through text after text in different combinations according to our time and space. Some of us think we are original, but there are only so many plots to a play, 24 or so, if I remember my Aristotle correctly, and I have changed the number, just to test you. Oh ye of too much faith!

We think we are original, but, as Picasso said, the painters of the cave paintings, all those many years ago, created everything we artists could ever dream of. We all borrow in one way or another and originality is merely a disguised form of borrowing. The faces change, the actors change, the medium changes, the times change, but otherwise, everything else is the same. Sad, really, that we should claim originality (and fresh water) for all that water that has passed under so many bridges.

Welsh blood and Irish soul – not even original, but shared by so many in my family. Add an English education, studies and residence in Spain, France, Mexico, Canada, and the USA, and what do you have? An intellectual mongrel, that does not know its own mother, like so many other mongrels, and that shakes its coat only to shed so many multi-cultural and multi-lingual fleas.

And remember – “Great fleas have lesser fleas upon their backs to bit them, and lesser fleas have smaller fleas, and so ad infinitum.” Intertextuality – they were only playing leap-frog and one jumped over and another jumped over someone else’s back.

Clepsydra 18-20

18

… as free as the birds
     a sky full at North Cape
          where shores retreat
               year after year
 
the big red mud diminishes
     under advancing waters
          sea-threatened cliffs
               undermined roads
                    houses
                         the lighthouse

gulls follow the fishing boats
     herring gulls
          blotting out
               sun and sky
                    above the reef

with its seals
     basking in sunshine
          knowing themselves
               being themselves
                    thinking themselves safe

kings and queens
     of their sealdom
          never questioning …

19

… an osprey
     sudden the swoop
          turned into a stoop

water shattered
     total immersion
          then emerging
               with lusty thrusts of wings

claws clasping
     imprisoned prey
          prised from the sea
               raised to the skies
                    up and away
                         murderer and victim

oblivious below
     the black horse
          with cart and farmer
               gathering seaweed

all of them
     having no doubts
          safe in the security
               of their roles …

20

… while lost in the labyrinth
      I searched for a thread
               on life’s loom

a thread woven
     by an unknown
          unseen hand
               a hand and thread
                    I could never control

yet one day
     that thread
          will lead me out
               from the dark

then shall I see
     the sun’s great candle
          beneath which red rocks
               wave and water battered
                    crumble

here at North Cape
     in a way that nobody
          can understand …

Commentary:

The osprey “emerging with lusty thrusts of wings, claws clasping, imprisoned prey prised from the sea, raised to the skies, up and away, murderer and victim.” The words are based on the photograph. A quiet day, somebody shouted, and pointed, and clickety-click, I was lucky enough to capture the whole thing on my digital camera. This one shot summarizes it all.

The stanzas (16 & 17) that precede this moment are available here. Clepsydra, the book, is one single poem, one single sentence, that rambles on and on. Each stanza stands alone, each poem (numbered) stands alone, and the whole book stands alone as a single sentence summarizing what I have seen and where I have been. Bakhtinian Chronotopos – my dialog with my time and my place. In this case, my many dialogs with my multiple times and multitudinous places.

Albert Camus lent me the phrase ‘murderer and victim’. ‘Nous sommes, ou meurtrier ou victime‘. Quoted from memory. I hope I am not too far wrong. My memory fades as I age. Louis Aragon suggested I borrow his line “rois tombés de leurs chariots” – that I found in his collection Il ne m’est Paris sans Elsa. Here, I have applied it to the seals at North Cape, PEI – “seals – basking in sunshine – kings and queens of their sealdom.” Intertextuality – texts talking to texts and recalling segments of texts within other texts.” Wonderful. Alas, I fear the coming days when the memory may no longer be so clear. ‘What will be, will be’ said the Osprey as he pulled the flounder from the sea and carried him too his nest in a nearby tree.