end of year panic – Stories from A Closet of Errors

Todos los días del mundo
algo hermoso termina.
Jaroslav Seifert

Duélete:
como a una vieja estrella fatigada
te ha dejado la luz. Y la criatura
que iluminabas
(y que iluminaba
tus ojos ciegos a las nimias cosas
del mundo)
ha vuelto a ser mortal.
Todo recobra
su densidad, su peso, su volumen,
ese pobre equilibrio que sostiene
tu nuevo invierno. Alégrate.
Tus vísceras ahora son otra vez tus vísceras
y no crudo alimento de zozobras.
Ya no eres ese dios ebrio e incierto
que te fue dado ser. Muerde
el hueso que dan,
llega a su médula,
recoge las migajas que deja la memoria.

Every day of the world
something beautiful ends.
Jaroslav Seifert

Suffer:
as if you were an old, tired star,
light has left you. And the creature
you lighted
(and who lighted
your eyes, blind to the world’s
trivial things)
is now mortal again.
Everything recovers
its density, its weight, its volume,
the poor balance that supports
your new winter. Be glad.
Your entrails are now again your entrails
and not coarse food of anxiety.
You’re no longer that drunk and uncertain god
that you turned out to be. Bite
the bone they give you,
down to the marrow,
pick up the crumbs memory leaves behind.

Standing at fearful attention, we’re grateful
to fear, which keeps us from going mad.
Decision and courage are bad
for our health; life without living is safer.

Adventurers whose adventures are history,
standing in fear we struggle against
ironic ghosts in our ongoing quest
for what we never were and won’t be.

Standing in fear with no voice of our own,
our heart ground up by our teeth, we are
the madmen, we’re our own ghosts.

A flock of sheep pursued by fear,
we live so together and so alone
that life’s meaning has disappeared.

Alexandre O’Neill (1962) , Translation: 1997, Richard Zenith

Perfilados de medo, agradecemos
o medo que nos salva da loucura.
Decisão e coragem valem menos
e a vida sem viver é mais segura.

Aventureiros já sem aventura,
perfilados de medo combatemos
irónicos fantasmas à procura
do que fomos, do que não seremos.

Perfilados de medo, sem mais voz,
o coração nos dentes oprimido,
os loucos, os fantasmas somos nós.

Rebanho pelo medo perseguido,
já vivemos tão juntos e tão sós
que da vida perdemos o sentido . . .