Mis Enlutadas

This is a translation from Spanish to English of the famous Mexican poem, Mis Enlutadas by Manuel Gutierrez Najera. I hope you enjoy my translation.

My saddnesses descend, taking turns,
to the depths of my soul,
and entombed ragged witches,
with black nails
dig through my life.

Their pupils are the color of blood,
Their tears are made of snow,
They instill a deep fear in me . . . and I love them
for being my sole companions.

I keep them anxiously, If their work
separates us,
I look for them in the midst of crowded chatter,
and they are constant
and are never tardy.

During celebrations, at times, I lose them
Or they wear a mask,
But then I find them and they tell me:
"come with us!
We are going home!"

Usually they leave me, when smiling,
my poor hopes
ill and convalescent
happily rush out
to the window.
Expelled, they run away, later to return
and entering from the false door
 they bring with them as a new guest
some sad,
livid sister.

The half light of my soul
opens infinitely to receive them,
and they go illuminating in it, my memories
like sad candles
of  pallid wax.

Between those lights, rigidly laying,
my spirit rests;
and the sadnesses, revolving as from a winch,
slow and solemn
 pray and sing.

They scrutinize the humid dwellings;
the nooks and corners,
where I keep quietly hidden
all of my faults,
all of my short-comings,
and foraging silently, like hungry wolves,
they find them, they remove them,
and returning to me, by my mortuary bed
they show them to me
and say: Speak.

In the complete depth of my being they dive,
fishing for my tears,
and they leave mute the black shells
in which freezing drops
shine.

Sometimes I turn against them
and bit them rabidly,
like the martyred and disabled girl
bites the caretaker
that abuses her.

But immediately, realizing its impotence,
my cholera calms itself.
What fault do they have, these poor daughters of mine,
if I made them
with blood and spirit?

You come, sadnesses of my cloudy pupil,
Come, my mourners,
You who have traveled by the infinite shadow
Where everything that is loved
can be found.

You do not deceive; Come, Sadnesses,
oh, my white creatures
abandoned by your awful mother,
horribly deceived ,
by her false hope!

¡Come and speak to me of relevant things,
of silent tombs,
of the noble dead and the ingrate living…
I'm going with you,
let's go home.

Reviews

[Glen Yumang Manese]

The lines to this piece are vivid and the translation is good...I read a few here that are not as good with the transformation...but this carried me through the entire...thanks for sharing...