gray dawn on dawn-gray wing

1982: I

Dream ended, I went out, awake
To new snow fallen in the dark,
Stainless on road and field, no track
Yet printed on my day of work.

I heard the wild ones muttering,
Assent their dark arrival made
At dawn, gray dawn on dawn-gray wing
Outstretched, shadowless in that shade,

Down from high distances arrived
Within the shelter of the hill;
The river shuddered as they cleaved
Its surface, floated, and were still.


-- Wendell Berry
This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems

Martial, 10:61 --- An Epitaph for Erotion

Mourning statues at the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa

Creative Commons license via Pixabay

An Epitaph for Erotion, a Child of Five

Here, in early dark, Erotion sleeps through death.

Her thieving, sixth winter reft her away.

Who governs this field, after my last day,

please keep the yearly rites for her frail wraith ---

then your house and people will thrive, the one

grieving thing in all your acres be this stone.

(my translation)

Martial, 10:61

Hic festinata requiescit Erotion umbra,

Crimine quam fati sexta peremit hiems.

Quisquis eris nostri post me regnator agelli,

Manibus exiguis annus iusta dato:

Sic lare perpetuo, sic turba sospite solus

Flebilis in terra sit lapis iste tua.

Martial 5:34, On the Death of Erotion

This is one of the best poems I know of (the original, I mean. The translation clunks and clanks and barely manages.) There is nothing more tender in the ancient world than Martial's grief and his concern that this child not be frightened in the underworld (she was, it seems, a real girl, not an imagined one). It occurs to me that this is also a gesture of love and piety toward Martial's parents, who must have died recently, if a five-year-old is going to recognize them. He sends her on ahead, trusting to his parents' kindness and letting them know that they are still in his mind.

On the Death of Erotion, a Slave Child

I commend this girl, this sweet one, my delight,

Fronto and Flaccilla, my parents, into your care,

so that with you little Erotion might not take fright

at Cerberus's triple roar or the phantoms there.

Had she lived six more days of winter cold,

she'd have prided herself on being six years old.

With such familiar protectors, let her trick and play

and still lisp my name, as she used to do.

May mellow sod veil her brittle bones --- and weigh

Lightly on her, kind earth; she was light on you.

(my translation)

Martial 5:34

Hanc tibi, Fronto pater, genetrix Flaccilla, puellam

     oscula commendo deliciasque meas,

parvula ne nigras horrescat Erotion umbras

     oraque Tartarei prodigiosa canis.

Impletura fuit sextae modo frigora brumae,

     vixisset totidem ni minus illa dies.

Inter tam veteres ludat lasciva patronos

     et nomen blaeso garriat ore meum.

Mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi,

     terra, gravis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.

 

Paul de Roux: Winter slips away

Loblolly Marsh

Geneva, Indiana

Winter Slips Away

Like a boat that has drifted from its mooring,

softly, irresistibly, Winter slips away

--- already gone or still here? who knows?

In town, one catches mere hints, nothing yet

of the bursting forth of bloom, of the sweetness

of a bud that opens and for a moment

is neither bud nor leaf: birth.

Clouds come and go, a caravan

with news of unknown climes,

of faraway fields and rivers

--- a caravan that doesn't pause, perhaps

learns nothing here --- then the sky is blue,

only the birds are in tune with it

--- in us there is something that doesn't yet shift

easily, that stays blockily put

like an abandoned parcel: this feeling that we

are the sole thing in the world that isn't new again.

(my translation)

Hiver s'écarte

Comme un bateau à l'amarre détachée,

doucement, irrésistiblement, Hiver s'écarte

--- déjà absent, encore présent? qui le sait?

En ville on ne saisit que des signes, rien encore

de l'éclat des fleurs, de la douceur

du bourgeon qui s'ouvre et un moment

n'est ni bourgeon ni fleur: naissance.

Les nuages passent, caravane

avec ses nouvelles des climats inconnus,

des campagnes et des fleuves lointains

--- caravane qui ne s'arrête pas, peut-être

n'apprend rien --- puis le ciel est bleu,

seuls les oiseaux sont en accord avec lui

--- en nous quelque chose qui ne bouge plus

facilement, qui reste posé là

comme un colis abandonné: sentiment

d'être seul au monde à ne pas reverdir.

from Rilke's French: "But it is purer to die"

a translation from the French of Rainer Maria Rilke

click here to read

winter grass, again

late winter, wind in dry grass, seed pods