72
Más no te importe si rueda
y pasa de mano en mano:
del oro se hace moneda.
73
De un Arte de Bien Comer,
primera lección:
No has de coger la cuchara
con el tenedor.
74
Señor San Jerónimo,
suelte usted la piedra
con que se machaca.
Me pegó con ella.
75
Conversación de gitanos:
—Para rodear,
toma la calle de en medio;
nunca llegarás.
76
El tono lo da la lengua,
ni más alto ni más bajo;
sólo acompáñate de ella.
77
¡Tartarín en Koenigsberg!
Con el puño en la mejilla,
todo lo llegó a saber.
78
Crisolad oro en copela,
y burilad lira y arco
no en joya, sino en moneda.
79
Del romance castellano
no busques la sal castiza;
mejor que romance viejo,
poeta, cantar de niñas.
Déjale lo que no puedes
quitarle: su melodía
de cantar que canta y cuenta
un ayer que es todavía.
80
Concepto mondo y lirondo
suele ser cáscara hueca;
puede ser caldera al rojo.
81
Si vivir es bueno,
es mejor soñar,
y mejor que todo,
madre, despertar.
82
No el sol, sino la campana,
cuando te despierta, es
lo mejor de la mañana.
83
¡Qué gracia! En la Hesperia triste,
promontorio occidental,
en este cansino rabo
de Europa, par desollar,
y en una ciudad antigua,
chiquita coma un dedal,
¡el hombrecillo que fuma
y piensa, y ríe al pensar:
cayeron las altas torres;
en un basurero están
la corona de Guillermo,
la testa de Nicolás!
Baeza, 1919
84
Entre las brevas soy blando;
entre las rocas, de piedra.
¡Malo!
85
¿Tu verdad? No, la Verdad,
y yen conmigo a buscarla.
La tuya, guárdatela.
86
Tengo a mis amigos
en mi soledad;
cuando estoy con ellos
¡qué lejos están!
87
¡Oh Guadalquivir!
Te vi en Cazorla nacer;
hoy, en Sanlúcar morir.
Un borbollón de agua clara,
debajo de un pino verde,
eras tú, qué bien sonabas!
Como yo, cerca del mar,
río de barro salobre,
¿sueñas con tu manantial?
88
El pensamiento barroco
pinta virutas de fuego,
hincha y complica el decoro.
89
Sin embargo...
—Oh, sin embargo,
hay siempre un ascua de veras
en su incendio de teatro.
90
¿Ya de su color se avergüenzan
las hojas de la albahaca,
salvias y alhucemas?
91
Siempre en alto, siempre en alto,
¿Renovación? Desde arriba.
Dijo la cucaña al árbol.
92
Dijo el árbol: Teme al hacha,
palo clavado en el suelo:
contigo la poda es tala.
93
¿Cuál es la verdad? ¿Eı río
que fluye y pasa
donde el barco y barquero
son también ondas del agua?
¿O este soñar del marino
siempre con ribera y ancla?
94
Sin embargo...
—Oh, sin embargo, hay siempre un ascua de veras
en su incendio de teatro.
95
Pero tampoco es razón
desdeñar
consejo que es confesión.
96
¿Ya sientes la savia nueva?
Cuida, arbolillo,
que nadie lo sepa.
97
Cuida de que no se entere
la cucaña seca
de tus ojos verdes.
98
Tu profecía, poeta.
—Mañana hablarán los mudos:
el corazón y la piedra.
99
—¿Mas el arte?...
—Es puro juego,
que es igual a pura vida,
que es igual a puro fuego.
Veréis el ascua encendida.
Proverbs and Songs
to José Ortega y Gasset
1
The eye you see is not
an eye because you see it.
It is eye because it sees you.
2
To converse
first ask,
then... listen.
3
All narcissism glows
as an ugly vice
and one by now old.
4
But seek in your mirror the other
who walks with you.
5
Between living and dream
there is a third way.
Guess it.
6
Now your Narcissus
can’t spot himself in the mirror
since he is the glass.
7
A new century? Still the same
flaming up the same forge?
And does water still race
in old pipes into a gorge?
8
Today is always still.
9
Sun in the Ram. My window
is open to the cold air.
O gossip of far water!
The twilight wakes the river.
10
In the ancient hamlet
—O wide towers with storks!—
the chatty noise dies out,
and in the solitary field
water sounds among the rocks.
11
Again I play my part
bound up with water,
yet water in the living
rock of my heart.
12
When water sounds, can you know
if it is water from a peak or valley,
a plaza, garden or from an orchard?
13
What I find astounds me:
leaves of garden balm
smell of ripe lemon.
14
Never lay out your frontier
or sharpen your profile.
That is all veneer.
15
Look for your counterpart
who always walks with you
and mostly is what you are not.
16
When spring comes
soar into flowers.
Don’t suck wax.
17
In my solitude
I have seen very clear things
that are not true.
18
Good are water and thirst,
good are shadow and sun;
the honey from rosemary,
the honey of a flowerless field.
19
At the border of the road
there is a stone fountain
and a small earthen jar
—gurgling—that no one moves.
20
Guess this riddle.
What is a fountain,
a jug and water?
21
I’ve seen people even
drink
from mud puddles.
Thirst has its caprices.
22
Let there be but one symbol:
quod elixum est ne asato.
Don’t roast what’s been boiled.
23
Sing, sing, sing,
the cricket in its cage
next to its tomato.
24
Slowly shape a good letter.
Making things fine
means more than making them.
25
Anyhow.
Ah! anyhow,
it’s vital to liven your oars,
the snail told the greyhound.
26
At last some active men!
The puddle was dreaming
of its mosquitoes.
27
O empty skull!
To think it all took place
inside you, skull!
said a second Dr. Pandolfo.
28
Singers, leave
the clapping and cheers
to others.
29
Wake up, singers:
Let echoes end,
voices begin.
30
Don’t hunt for dissonance.
In the end nothing sounds bad
and people dance to any tune.
31
A wrestler over the hill.
Yesterday a prince,
tomorrow trash.
32
Brawler, boxer,
beat up the wind.
33
Anyhow.
Oh, anyhow,
You hang onto the fetish of waiting
for your quota of punches.
34
O rinnovarsi o perire...
It doesn’t sound good.
Navigare è necessario...39
Better. Live to see.
35
A new cipher is ripening
and will snare its groupies.
An activist is as useless
as a rational being.
36
The poet doesn’t look
for the fundamental I40
but the essential you.
37
A doctor said: “As old
as the world” means to be
learned, forgotten and buried
like Rameses’s mummy.
38
But the doctor didn’t know
that today is always still.
39
Find a mirror in someone,
but not for shaving
or dyeing your hair.
40
The eyes you sigh for,
get it straight,
eyes you see yourself in
are eyes because they see you.
41
“Now old words are heard.”
Well, sharpen your ears.
42
Christ teaches: love your neighbor
as yourself, yet never
forget the neighbor is someone else.
43
He said another truth:
Find the you who is never yours
and never can be.
44
Don’t despise words.
Poets, the world is noisy
and mute. Only God talks.
45
Everything for others?
Young man, fill your jar
so they will drink it up.
46
One lies more than can be counted
for lack of imagination.
Truth also is invented.
47
Authors, the scene ends
with one rule of theater:
In the beginning was the mask.
48
The worst of the gang
of scoundrels is one who forgets
his vocation as devil.
49
Did you say a half-truth?
They’ll say you lie twice
if you spill the other half.
50
To you I don’t allude
in my song, friend.
That you is me.41
51
Give time to time.
For your cup to run over.
you must fill it first.
52
Hour of my heart.
The hour of a hope
and a despair.
53
Beyond living and dreaming
is what matters most:
coming awake.
54
His voice quivers when he sings.
Now they don’t hiss his lyrics,
they’re hissing his heart.
55
Now there were some who said:
Cogito ergo non sum.42
What an exaggeration!
56
Gypsy talk.
“How are we doing, pal?”
“Circling down the shortcut.”
57
Some in despair
only heal with the rope,
others with seven words.
Faith is back in style.
58
I thought my fireplace dead
and stirred the ashes.
I burned my fingers.
59
He broke into a laugh!
A very serious man!
No one would guess it.
60
Let’s divvy the work.
The bad guys dip the arrow,
the good ones flex the bow.
61
Like don Sem Tob,
he dies his white hair
and more reasonably.
62
To find work for the wind
he sewed the tree’s dry leaves
with a double thread.
63
He felt the four winds
at the crossroads
of his thought.
64
Do you know the invisible
spinners of dreams?
Two of them: green hope
and grim fear.
They bet on who
spins more and more lightly,
she with a gold ball,
he with a black ball.
With the thread we are given
we weave when we weave.
65
Sow mallow
but don’t eat it,
said Pythagoras.
Answer the ax
—said the Buddha and the Christ!—
with your sandalwood aroma.
It’s good to remember
the old words
that come back and ring out.
66
Pay attention.
A solitary heart
is not a heart.
67
Bees, singers,
not to the honey but to flowers.
68
Every fool has the vice
of confusing worth and price.
69
He saw his shadow walking in dreams.
Good hunter of himself,
always lying in ambush.
70
He caught his bad man,
who on sunblue days
walks with his head down.
71
Give your poems double light,
reading them head on
and at an angle.
72
Don’t worry if it goes around
and slips from hand to hand:
out of gold is made a coin.
73
From an Art of Table Manners,
lesson one:
You must not pick up the spoon
with the fork.
74
Lord Saint Jerome,
let go of that stone
you pound yourself with.
He bashed me with it.
75
Gypsy talk:
“For going around
take the middle road.
You’ll never get there.”
76
&nbs
p; Your tongue sets the tone,
not too high nor too low.
Just stay with it.
77
Tartarin in Kant’s Königsberg!
With his cheek on his fist,
he managed to learn everything.43
Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Spanish Edition) Page 25