THE LADY WHO TRANSLATES MY STORIES

JORGE  PAOLANTONIO

 

 

 for Nouha Gorani Homad

 

the lady who translates my stories

was born in Damascus

she has interpreted the Quran in a different tongue

and has let Neruda thrill in a different language

 

the beautiful lady who translates my stories

lives up to the faith of her travelling father

he had let her eyes fill with the park

opposite his embassy in Buenos Aires

and with the perfumed oaks of East

or with the rough cliffs of Wales

 

the sensitive lady who translates my stories

has brought forth children to better understand the world

she would lull them by pouring into their ears

 melodies from Lebanon and medieval ballads

and would construct mandalas for them

with geraniums and dates

 

the lady in the living flesh who translates my stories

has gone on pilgrimages and has said her prayers

in innumerable languages

as many as the battered women

in Detroit in Guatemala in Medellin

in Rio in Jalisco in Salta

in Congo Afghanistan Somalia

Nigeria and in the Sokoto Caliphate

in the blue night of Lapland and Helsinki

the Mirabal sisters – Dominican Republic –

Maria Soledad in Catamarca

 

the barefooted lady who translates my stories

draws a veil in Aleppo and a shroud in Palmira

endeavours to paint a heron in flight

the sea that would fill her with skies

while figs would grow into eternity

perfumed by anise and mint

 

the amorous lady who translates stories

kisses Gida in Chile and in Kuwait she kisses Ghada

leaves her mother’s picture under a Rose of Sharon

that has been cut in the morning

 

she sighs open faced

this beautiful lady who paints small worlds

and dissipates her sadness preparing her baklava

 

the mutable lady – a feather on the wind-

who translates history

has carved a cedar of incalculable height

there in a pile are     a heron    a salmon

a two-headed snake and a black butterfly:

it is a totem that sums up the world

in  love poems

and a song of despair

 

   (English version: NORA ISABEL DELGADO)

 

 

 

 

JORGE PAOLANTONIO (Catamarca, Argentina, 1947) received an M.A. diploma in English from Universidad de Córdoba and holds a PhD (a.b.t.) in Modern Languages from Universidad del Salvador. Poet, fiction writer, playwright. He has published thirteen books of poems, six novels, and four volumes containing his plays. Seventeen of his dramatic monologues have been staged all over Argentina and other Latin American countries. His poems and translations of his poems have appeared in literary journals, anthologies as well as in blogs and online publications. He is the author of Ceniza de Orquídeas (2003) translated as Ashes of Orchids (O'Neill in Buenos Aires) (2010) and of La Fiamma (2010) with an Italian version (2014). Paolantonio has received a creative writing fellowship from Fondo Nacional de las Artes as well as a number of national and international awards and distinctions. He lives in Buenos Aires; now a retired professor, he is full time devoted to writing.