Mario Murgia

Mar201301

Goat Herder

Yesterday I hoped it wouldn't rain,
Miguel, when the clamour of the cowbells
turned dawn into a warbling festival
and made the goats a herd of hooligans.

With powdery soft voices the shepherds sang,
while I, lost in my daily wanderings,
could hear your poetry's overflowing liquors
of blackest milk from a few docile teats.

But now, Miguel, it's raining and the raindrops
muffle the bells that strangle
the herds of animals in awe; they combine
and modulate, hopping between your rich melodies.

The nightingales, vainly opposing you, are perched
along the enormous bastions of the branches;
soon they will shy away like withered ladies,
seeing gold feathers growing in your hands.

I hear you, Nightingale-Hernandez, with a goatbell,
deciphering the dirge of the boy-god herder,
and getting it wrong, except to strike in a stupor
the assonance of my gypsy verse.

Translated by Ben Mazer

Cabrero

Esperaba ayer que no lloviera,
Miguel, cuando el clamor de los cencerros
hizo del alba una fiesta pajarera
y de las cabras todo un hato de gamberros.

Con voz polvosa canturreaban los pastores
mientras yo, perdido en mis diarias andanzas,
escuchaba tus poesías chorreando los licores
de la leche negra de unas tetas mansas.

Pero llueve ya, Miguel, y las gotas
acallan las campanas que estrangulan
los rebaños de animales que, azorados, modulan
brincos entre tus pastosas notas.

Los ruy-señores se te enfrentan vanos
desde los largos bastiones de las ramas,
pero pronto se retiran como mustias damas
al ver que áureas plumas crecen en tus manos.

Te escucho, ruy-señor-Hernández, con tímpano
cabrío que, al descifrar la endecha del señor
zagal, no atina sino a golpear con estupor
el yunque y la asonancia de este verso cíngaro.

MARIO MURGIA was born in Mexico City in 1973. He is probably the only Mexican Milton scholar and has been writing poetry since the age of 11. Being of Italian descent (his father was from Sardinia), he has always been aware of the joys of language-shifting, which has made of translation one of his most rewarding pleasures.