It's been away for far too long
and has that which I hold dearly
all my love for my creativity.

I winced at hearing myself read how awful it was outloud. After a very long pause, her first words were “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” She said this in a somewhat weary tone that belied the disappointment and frustration she felt underneath her sweet southern Tennessee accent. Artists have very fragile and insecure egos, so she was very careful in walking the line between former teacher and creative mentor. I knew her well enough not to waste either of our time with vane excuses.

“What else you got? Because I know you, you've probably been sitting down writing and trying to force yourself to come up with something instead of painting or reading or doing something else that might free you up creatively.” She was right. After they cyber attack destroyed my pc and I lost my new poems, I got frustrated and stopped writing, my heart no longer in it. The looming deadline was the only thing that forced back onto a page.

“Well, you better come up with somethin’, ‘cause your name is already in the program and you’re closing the show. Otherwise that silence you hear after your name will be forever owned by you. It will resonate within you for years to come, and you’ll never be able to take it back.” [This is writer speak for disappointed the audience with a creative void. The punishment for such a sin is a deafening silence.]

So after hanging up the phone, I called the sitter and asked her to pick up my son so I could take a very long walk by the river. By the time I stopped and inspiration had struck, I had walked 6 miles. But in the process I found the first few lines for my poem and a back up plan. The theme I was assigned was ‘My Warring Muse’

After a dozen or so false starts, these are the first few lines that IÂ’m finally content with:

AmorÂ… te anoro.
Mi alma busca de nuevo conocer
la sublimidad que es tu ser.

Update: My translation is below
My Love... I long for you.
My soul is searching once again
to know the sublimity that is you.

I think I”ll have enough time to compose a poem. But if I don’t. I won’t be the first one to read a work in progress from a notebook. In the meantime, in the next post you can read my back up plan. A translation I wrote of a Pablo Neruda poem that speaks of the love/hate relationship writers have with their muses.

Posted by: Michele at 12:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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SONNET LXVI

I DON”T LOVE YOU... Because I Love you
and from loving you to not loving I arrive
at waiting while not waiting,
all the while, my heart going from ice to fire.

I love only you because it is you I love.
I hate you endlessly and hating plead
to the measure of your temporary love
never to see you or love you blindly.

Perhaps your cruel streak
will consume my heart and inner light
stealing with it my eternal peace.

In this story it is I who die
dying in my love and need of you
loving with passion blood and fire only you.
~ Pablo Neruda, 1959 - Translation my own

SONETO LXVI
NO TE QUIERO sino porque te quiero
y de quererte a no quererte llego
y de esperarte cuando no te espero
pasa mi corazón del frío al fuego.

Te quiero sólo porque a ti te quiero,
te odio sin fin, y odiándote te ruego,
y la medida de mi amor viajero
es no verte y amarte como un ciego.

Tal vez consumirá la luz de enero,
su rayo cruel, mi corazón entero,
robándome la llave del sosiego.

En esta historia sólo yo me muero
y moriré de amor porque te quiero,
porque te quiero, amor, a sangre y fuego.
~ Pablo Neruda, 1959

Posted by: Michele at 12:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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