Reading poetry is similar. There are themes that attract me to authors, and there are authors I like to re-read.
This morning I was thinking about balconies. For a strange reason I find balconies special places where one discovers the ordinary in an unusual way, or seems to escape from the architecture within which we live. A balcony is freedom from buildings, and as such, seems to allow for a bit more capricious thinking or behavior. I have written about balconies, from balconies and while remembering moments upon balconies. In poetry or prose, balconies have found their way into my writings.
But today, I wanted to read from others, and three poets came to mind—Baudelaire, Frederico Garcia Lorca, and Pablo Neruda. My French is better than my Spanish, but I feel comfortable reading poetry in both languages. Of the three poets, I find Neruda the most versatile, accessible, diversified, and for the common mortal in all of us. Only a small portion of his voluminous work has been translated into English, and that is a pity. I was introduced to Baudelaire at school, but introduced myself to Garcia Lorca and Neruda later in life. Perhaps I was ready for them. Perhaps it was a choice based on who I had become in choosing pathways to my mood.
.. The balcony. Written as Le Balcon or El Balcón, it is never about the balcony itself but what or who it represents. Again, it is the platform for dreams, remembrances or new thoughts.
Le Balcon is a famous poem written by Baudelaire to his lover. As always all translations are poor, especially when it comes to poetry. So here are the opening lines of the original poem and one of the many translations into English.
Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses,
Ô toi, tous mes plaisirs! ô toi, tous mes devoirs!
Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses,
La douceur du foyer et le charme des soirs,
Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses!
And a 2001 translation by Peter Low
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
you who are all my pleasures and all my duties,
you will remember the beauty of our caresses,
the sweetness of the hearth, the charm of the evenings,
mother of memories, mistress of mistresses.
Why did Baudelaire decide to use the Balcony for these lines? It is said that she might have been on the balcony and this was a “Romeo and Juliette moment”. Or that some of his memories of her were associated with a balcony. I am not sure. For me, the balcony in this poem is almost a symbol of evasion, in thought or in body, through two lovers.
The Farewell by Garcia Lorca seems simpler, yet more powerful. In a few short lines he identifies the ordinary that makes life so desirable. Perhaps even durable even in the face of death. The balcony door may open upon an existence that succeeds to life itself.
If I am dying,
leave the balcony open.
The child is eating an orange.
(From my balcony, I see him.)
The reaper is reaping the barley.
(From my balcony, I hear him.)
If I am dying,
leave the balcony open.
Next are lines from Neruda where the word balcony is used, but is not about the balcony we all know. It has no concrete, no stone and no steel. Instead it is the balcony of the sea, a vantage point where the mind rests:
..and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning
This lovely translation, by his close friend Alastair Reid, feels almost as genuine as the original Spanish version. It is hopeful, it is about a new morning. Or at least about the memory of a wonderful past morning. The balcony, for me, is where one needs to find himself to be optimistic.
… So there I was, on a windy and cool November morning thinking about balconies. Or about what memories I have because of balconies. No matter, I was in the mood for poetry and again, Neruda’s definition of poetry seemed to fit my mood. In Plenos Poderes he wrote:
La poesía es blanca:
sale del agua envuelta en gotas,
se arruga, y se amontona,
Which was translated by Thayne Tuason as:
The poetry is white:
it comes out of the water wrapped in drops,
it is wrinkled, and piles up,
This is why Neruda speaks to the mortal in me, while Garcia Lorca may go a step further into the post-mortem optimism about our days. And Baudelaire… he is the one who lived the moment with no respect to what was next or could be next!
But all three speak of love. And Neruda may have found the right formula when he said:
“If nothing saves us from death, at least let love save us from life.”
November 1, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014
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