Salvadoran poet Róger Lindo tr. Matthew Byrne sets a tempestuous scene: a night storm both ethereal and mundane that compels all, from the dormouse to the soldier, to collective awe. This Translation Tuesday, we invite you to bear witness to ‘the nocturnal splendor’.
“Zinc”
I have only hubris and kindness.
–G. Ungaretti
Beastly storm.
A dormouse peers out halfway.
The rodent will be captivated, as I will,
by the hailstones
lashing against the roof.
The city mnemonist is here,
a soldier yearning,
drawing near, intrigued by
the nocturnal splendor.
I’ve been a solitary worker bee
in the afternoon,
but I’ve also sung
plowing the soil.
When the rain eases off,
we’re alone with the crickets.
Translated from the Spanish by Matthew Byrne.
Róger Lindo is a Salvadoran poet and journalist most popular for his writing in Los Angeles’s La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States. He is the author of one collection of poetry, Los infiernos espléndidos, and two novels: El perro en la niebla (2008) and La isla de los monos (2016).
Matthew Byrne is a writer and translator whose work has appeared in Guernica, Gulf Coast, West Branch, The Brooklyn Rail, and other outlets.
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Read more from Translation Tuesdays on the Asymptote blog:
Translation Tuesday: “Summer” by Cvetka Lipuš
Translation Tuesday: “23 Cents” by Appadurai Muttulingam
Translation Tuesday: “The Snowman’s Son” by Aleksandr Kabanov