MARIE UNDER [9208]

MARIE UNDER

(Nació el 27 de marzo de 1883 en Tallinn, Estonia - Murió el 25 de septiembre de 1980 en Estocolmo, Suecia ), fue una de las más grandes poetas de Estonia.

SOLA CON EL MAR

Los haces de centeno están apilados.

Todo el mundo se está yendo.

El techo del carruaje está levantado.

El viajero de atrás

igual que el cochero de adelante

está pensativo, silencioso.

Nadie se demora en la orilla,

ni un alma.

Es mejor de esa manera.

Sólo las rocas y el agua,

las únicas huellas las hacen mis zapatos.

La gaviota llama.

Es duro. Sé porqué.

El viento rasga el agua.

Y la abeja toma de la última flor,

que se hamaca en una rendija,

la miel final.

Así camino lejos

a lo largo de la orilla blanca

hasta que de pronto veo

a mis solitarios exploradores pies

en el océano infinito. Me paralizo como una piedra.

Y me detengo, como si estuviese cara a cara con Dios.

QUESTION 

We saw those berries, overripe and glowing, 

in weak and tepid light of the October sun 

persisting red as blood, in right full-growing, 

without much inkling of the winter clouds to come. 

And then a wind-gust brushed those heavy bunches: 

and some of them burst, falling to the ground 

on wilted grass, soon after, under branches 

gold leaves with purple berries lay around. 

And hand in hand we walked uphill together 

and pushed by the capricious wind's bad weather, 

eye to eye, as in anxiety, we asked: 

our love's moist, joyful red in present flowering, 

will life's wind carry it away, devouring, 

or will it fall to the grave's soil, and last? 

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS 1941 

I walk the silent, Christmas-snowy path 

that goes across the homeland in its suffering. 

At each doorstep I would like to bend my knee: 

there is no house that knows not mourning's sting. 

The spark of anger flickers in sorrow's ashes, 

the mind is hard with anger, soft with pain: 

there is no way of being pure as Christmas 

on this white, pure-as-Christmas lane. 

Alas, to have to live such stony instants, 

to carry on one's heart a coffin lid! 

Not even tears will come now any more - 

that gift of mercy also died and hid. 

I'm like someone rowing backwards: 

eyes permanently set on past - 

backwards, yes - yet reaching home at last ... 

my kinsmen, though, are left without a home... 

I always think of those who were torn from here... 

The heavens echo with the cries of their distress. 

I think that we are all to blame 

for what they lack - for we have food and bed! 

Shyly, almost as in figurative language, 

I ask without believing it can come to pass: 

Can we, I wonder, ever use our minds again 

for sake of joy and happiness? 

Now light and darkness join each other, 

towards the stars the parting day ascends. 

The sunset holds the first sign of the daybreak - 

It is as if, abruptly, night expands. 

All things are ardent, serious and sacred, 

snow's silver leaf melts on my lashes' flame, 

I feel as though I'm rising ever further: 

that star there, is it calling me by name? 

And then I sense that on this day they also 

are raising eyes to stars, from where I hear 

a greeting from my kinsfolk, sisters, brothers, 

in pain and yearning from their prison's fear. 

This is our talk and dialogue, this only, 

a shining signal - oh, read, and read! - 

with thousand mouths - as if within their glitter 

the stars still held some warmth of breath inside. 

The field of snow dividing us grows smaller: 

of stars our common language is composed.... 

It is as if we d started out for one another, 

were walking, and would soon meet on the road. 

For an instant it will die away, that 'When? When?' 

forever pulsing in you in your penal plight, 

and we shall meet there on that bridge in heaven, 

face to face we'll meet, this Christmas night. 

translated from Estonian by Leopoldo Niilus and David McDuff

Denunciation

I cry aloud with all my people's mouths, 

our land is smitten by a plague of fear and lead, 

our land is shadowed by the gallows tree 

our land a common graveyard, huge with dead. 

Who'll come to help? Right here, at present, now! 

Because the patient's weak, has lost his hold. 

But, like the call of birds, my shouting fades 

in emptiness: the world is arrogant and cold. 

The sighing of the old, the baby's cry — 

do they all run to sand, illusion, fail? 

Men, women groan like wounded deer 

to those in power all this is just a fairy-tale. 

Dark is the world's eye, its ear is deaf, 

the powerful lost in madness or stupidity. 

Compassion's only felt by those whom suffering breaks, 

and sufferers alone have hearts like you and me