ELEGIA
from AS LINHAS DA MÃO
by Alberto Da Costa e Silva (DIFEL, 1978)
translated by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira
Endure this childhood, this death, this beginning. These things don't stop. They flow, restlessly, like old sobbing rivers. The flowers that we only dreamed of have come to fruit. Seasons, behold this destiny. But no, don't forget the promise of flowers in the fruit seeds the face of your father on the jowl of your son, the waves that return to the same beaches, unknowing partners with every new encounter. These things flow, they don't stop. The leaves are born, the leaves fall away, in faraway gardens. In silence, you live the childhood of your eyes and, dead, you are so pure that you become a boy. // original, in Portuguese Sofrer esta infância, esta morte, este início. As cousas não param. Elas fluem, inquietas, como velhos rios soluçantes. As flores aue apenas sonhamos em frutos se tornaram. Sazonar, eis o destino. Porém, não esquecer a promessa de flores nas sementes dos frutos, o rosto de teu pai na face do teu filho, as ondas que voltam sobre as mesmas praias, noivas desconhecidas a cada novo encontro. As cousas fluem, não param. As folhas nascem, as folhas tombam longe, em longínquos jardins. Em silêncio, vives a infância de teus olhos e, morto, és tão puro que te tornas menino.
This week, a familial poem.
My great-uncle (who was also a best friend of my grandfather) passed away recently, and he left behind a legacy of poetry, history, and love. “Elegia” is his poem from a book he published in 1978 that I found this past summer on my grandma’s bookcase. I offer my rough translation here (my Portuguese is far from competent and unfortunately reliant on dictionaries and web searches) in his memory.
Some say translation is a transformation—or, further, only an adaptation and never a full realization. A lot has been said about what gets lost. In translation, there’s a chance for dialogue to continue in a new context, for words to find a new life. This is especially true in my case trying to translate across languages of unequal knowledge; there are idioms and expression I can only guess at, and inevitably change. Perhaps a translation is never the same, but perhaps, too, nothing is the same and everything changes. We can mourn, and we can flow.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts—on my tio’s poem, on translation, on Portuguese to English, on posting on a Friday afternoon instead of a Thursday morning.
Longínquo, Ricky