Jerome Rothenberg: Die Lorca-Variationen (XXVII) - Wasserstrahlen (2)
"After translating Lorca's series of poems "The Suites" I began to compose a series of poems of my own (“variations”) that draw systematically on vocabulary, especially nouns and adjectives, from my translations of the Suites, but rearrange them in a variety of ways. The methods used resemble chance operations but with a margin of flexibility, with total freedom in the case of verbs and adverbs, with occasional addresses to Lorca himself imbedded in them. The result isn’t translation or imitation in any narrow sense, but yet another way of making poetry – and for me at least, a way of coming full circle into a discovery that began with Lorca and for which he has stood with certain others as a guide and constant fellow-traveler."
Jerome Rothenberg
Jerome Rothenberg
THE LORCA VARIATIONS (XXVII)
“Lorca’s Journals”
Jerome Rothenberg
DIE LORCA-VARIATIONEN (XXVII)
„Lorcas Tagebücher“
übersetzt von Norbert Lange
Water Jets [2]
Waking from a dream I touched death with my finger as he fled from me, but couldn’t see his face. The water jets were pouring all around us, every room wet down to the darkest corner. It was as far from August as from home, as far from sunlight as from clouds. And still the air was throbbing with its water jets, fountains as heavy as my heart, a place where things can disappear without a trace, like dreams, like water from a water jet. Later your face comes back to me; interior boundaries dissolve; a grapevine trembles; a water jet’s deflected by your eye.
Wasserstrahlen [2]
Aus einem Traum erwachend, berührte ich den Tod mit meinem Finger, als er vor mir floh, doch konnte sein Gesicht nicht sehen. Die Wasserstrahlen strömten rings um uns, jedes Zimmer wurde nass bis in den dunkelsten Winkel. Es war so weit entfernt von August wie von Zuhause, so weit entfernt von Sonnenlicht wie von Wolken. Und noch immer pulsierte die Luft mit ihren Wasserstrahlen, Springbrunnen wie mein Herz so schwer, ein Ort, wo Dinge spurlos verschwinden können, traumgleich, wie das Wasser eines Wasserstrahls. Später kehrt dein Gesicht zu mir zurück; Innengrenzen zerfließen; ein Weinstock erzittert; ein Wasserstrahl, von deinem Auge abgelenkt.