[Otro ángel clamó a gran voz]
diciendo: No hagáis daño a la
tierra, ni al mar, ni a los árboles…
(Apocalipsis)
Están cortando los enormes árboles donde terminan los jardines.
Durante días hubo un rechinar de sierras, un silbido de ramas al caer,
un desplome de troncos, un crujido de ramas pisoteadas
con los "ay" y los "uy", con la charla ruidosa y las risas ruidosas de
los hombres, por encima de todo.
Recuerdo que una noche de primavera, hace mucho tiempo,
ante una reja, luego de bajarme de un carro, me encontré una gran rata
muerta en el lodo de la entrada.
Recuerdo haber pensado que una rata, viva o muerta, había sido dejada de
la mano de Dios,
pero que en mayo, al menos, hasta una rata debería estar viva.
El trabajo de toda la semana casi está listo. Falta aquella rama
en el tronco amarrado, en esa lluvia delicada y gris,
verde y alta,
a solas sobre el cielo.
(¡Y derribada ahora!)
Salvo eso,
de no ser por la rata vieja y muerta
que alguna vez, por un momento, consiguió deshacer la primavera, jamás
habría pensado en ello nuevamente.
La primavera no está deshecha hoy por un momento;
estos solían ser árboles enormes, ella estaba en sus troncos y raíces.
Cuando los hombres, con sus "ay" y "uy", se hayan llevado toda la gracia
susurrante,
para mí, media primavera se habrá ido con ellos.
Ahora se está yendo, y han golpeado mi corazón como los corazones de los
plátanos;
ha latido mitad de mi vida con ellos, al sol, bajo las lluvias,
en el viento de marzo, en la brisa de mayo,
en los violentos ventarrones que hasta ellos llegaron sobre los techos de los
grandes mares.
Tan sólo hubo una lluvia sutil mientras morían;
debieron escuchar los gorriones en vuelo,
las pequeñas criaturas reptantes en la tierra ahí donde yacían.
Pero el día entero oí clamar a un ángel:
"No lastimen los árboles".
[Collected Poems and Prose, 1981]
Charlotte Mew (Londres, 1869-1928), "Dos poemas de Charlotte Mew", Letras Libres, México, 15 de junio de 2018
Versión de Hernán Bravo Varela
Otros poemas en
Poetry Foundation, My Poetic Side
Foto: Charlotte Mew a los 26 años My Poetic Side
The trees are down
—and he cried with a loud voice: Hurt not
the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees—
(Revelation)
They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.
For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as
they fall,
The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,
With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud
common laughs of the men, above it all.
I remember one evening of a long past Spring
Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in
the mud of the drive.
I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,
But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.
The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough
On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,
Green and high
And lonely against the sky.
(Down now!—)
And but for that,
If an old dead rat
Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of
him again.
It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;
These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:
When the men with the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of
the whispering loveliness away
Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.
It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;
Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,
In the March wind, the May breeze,
In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great
seas.
There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
They must have heard the sparrows flying,
And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying—
But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:
‘Hurt not the trees.’
-- Poetry Foundation, Collected Poems and Prose, Manchester, England: Carcanet Press Ltd., 1981
Charlotte Mew (Londres, 1869-1928), "Dos poemas de Charlotte Mew", Letras Libres, México, 15 de junio de 2018
Versión de Hernán Bravo Varela
Otros poemas en
Poetry Foundation, My Poetic Side
Foto: Charlotte Mew a los 26 años My Poetic Side
The trees are down
—and he cried with a loud voice: Hurt not
the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees—
(Revelation)
They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.
For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as
they fall,
The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,
With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud
common laughs of the men, above it all.
I remember one evening of a long past Spring
Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in
the mud of the drive.
I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,
But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.
The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough
On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,
Green and high
And lonely against the sky.
(Down now!—)
And but for that,
If an old dead rat
Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of
him again.
It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;
These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:
When the men with the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of
the whispering loveliness away
Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.
It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;
Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,
In the March wind, the May breeze,
In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great
seas.
There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
They must have heard the sparrows flying,
And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying—
But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:
‘Hurt not the trees.’
-- Poetry Foundation, Collected Poems and Prose, Manchester, England: Carcanet Press Ltd., 1981
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