Jylian Gustlin
Luis Nieto Miranda
Translated from spanish by Lynn Levin
My Heart in the Rain
Yesterday, caught in the rain and its lament,
I missed so dearly the light of your presence,
the chatty rivulets of your glances,
and the animated conversation of your hands
that traced white pathways in the sky.
I needed you so, love, in the rain!
Suddenly, I sensed your breath.
It seemed to me it was your likeness
entering, lightly grazing me with its flower of silence.
It was like the wing of a sob,
like the echo of sorrowful words
marching off to die in the country of the wind.
Perhaps, talking in my sleep, my mouth
stripped the petals from your image
and left it shivering like a flame.
Because of this, my heart in the rain
shuddered for a spell.
I waited for you helplessly.
I wanted so much to decipher the script
of the night and its torrential shadows
that my eyes, at last, ignited fireflies
along the paths.
But when I struck out like a black sailboat,
my heart was a dead bird
caught in the rain.
Mi Corazón Bajo la Lluvia
Ayer, bajo la lluvia y su lamento,
me hacían tanta falta la luz de tu presencia,
el arroyuelo charlador de tus miradas
y el alborotado parloteo de tus manos
que trazan caminos blancos en el cielo.
¡Cuánta falta, amor, me hiciste bajo la lluvia!
De repente sentí como tu aliento.
Me pareció que era tu nombre
que pasaba rozándome con su flor de silencio.
Fue como el ala de un sollozo,
como el eco de las palabras mustias
marchando a morir en el pais del viento.
Quizás mi boca lo deshojó, sonámbula,
y lo dejó temblando como una llama.
Por eso mi corazón bajo la lluvia
se estremeció un momento.
Te esperé inútilmente.
Tanto descifrar el misterio
de la noche y sus sombras torrenciales,
mis ojos encendieron luciérnagas
en los senderos.
Cuando me fui como un negro velero,
mi corazón bajo la lluvia
era un pájaro muerto!
Portrait of the Beloved Woman
She has the laugh of daybreak,
she has the voice of a lark,
she has the flight of the frigate bird,
and the strut of a dove.
Her brow is a bell tower,
her hands are two gulls;
kneaded into her flesh
are jasmine and butterflies.
A work of song and silence,
a mix of sun and shade,
she arises like a sigh
and holds herself high like a goddess.
Two roses seem
to sleep in her cheeks
and will wake to the kiss
of the morning dew.
Her body like a moon,
her voice like a bell,
and all her history sunk
in the depths of one tear.
My hands spell her,
my pain decorates her with its badge,
my blood lays before her a path,
my heart proclaims her.
She is the flower of my joy,
she is the sunshine in my gaze,
she is the light of my anguish,
the song of my guitar.
Retrato de la mujer amada
Tiene la risa del alba,
tiene la voz de una alondra,
tiene un aire de fragata
y el andar de una paloma.
Su frente es un campanario,
sus manos son dos gaviotas;
se han amasado en su carne
jazmines y mariposas.
Hecha de canto y silencio,
mezcla de sol y de sombra,
es leve como un suspiro
y altiva como una diosa.
En sus mejillas parece
que se durmiesen las rosas
y despertaran al beso
del rocío de la aurora.
Su cuerpo como una luna,
su voz como una campana
y toda su historia enterrada
en el fondo de una lágrima.
Mis manos la deletrean,
mi dolor la condecora,
mi sangre le hace un camino,
mi corazón la pregona.
Es la flor de mi alegría,
es el sol de mi mirada,
es la luz de mis congojas,
la canción de mi guitarra.
Luis Nieto Miranda (1910-1997) is dear to the hearts of Peruvians, especially those who live in Cusco and the Andean highlands. A close friend of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, Nieto rose to prominence in the 1930s and 1940s. These poems appear in Nieto’s selected works, De Cuerpo Entero (Municipalidad del Cusco, 1997) and were originally published in Velero del corazón (1948).
Lynn Levin is the translator of Birds on the Kiswar Tree/La Escuela de Cusco by the Peruvian Andean poet Odi Gonzales (2 Leaf Press, 2014). Levin’s other books include Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky, 2013) and, as co-author, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture, 2013). Her website is www.lynnlevinpoet.com.