Algún Sonido

It is November and the sky is heavy. Dead leaves are everywhere on the city streets and the desert is browner than usual. Large raven fly in groups and dance the fall farandole.

A good time to read poetry.

Coral Bracho is a contemporary Mexican poet who celebrates the daily life. I like his neo-baroque style and have read some of his poems translated to French. I came across a lovely translation in English of a poem I like. It is entitled “Among the Ruins” (Entre Estas Ruinas), and somehow it did hit a personal note today. In a strange way it reminded me of a photo I had taken a few years back of my two dogs. It was with a Yashica 124 and contre-jour. But it has a lot of feelings to it as I associated that photo with the wait.

Here are the opening lines of the poem in Spanish:

Este hotel es una Antigua escuela,

uno lo siente a pesar del tiempo.

A pesar de los muros derruidos,

de los espacios rotos.

And the translation:

This hotel is an old school,

you can feel it, though time has passed.

Despite the broken-down walls,

the smashed spaces.

The author looks for his old room in this hotel in ruins and ends the poem as such:

From here, all the spaces are back to front.

Perhaps I will recognize the look of my room

by its own back.  Or from it, perhaps, I will catch

some sound. (O tal vez reconozca de él

algún sonido.)

It was the choice of the word “sound” that made me uncomfortable. It is just too soft, too anti-climactic. Depending on my mood when reading this poem, I would have looked for murmur, a crashing wave, a roar of the surf! For example “sonido del mar” is more than the “sound of the sea”—it is the roar of the surf and the crashing of the waves!

But, it is November and the sky is heavy. And the slight evening wind is humming through the dry, fallen leaves on the city streets…

November 7, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017