Antonio Machado is weer een van die dichters waarbij ik een gedicht helemaal niks vind óf helemaal geweldig. En dat laatste is het dik waard om deze bundel gelezen te hebben. Hoe ik zijn poëzie zou moeten beschrijven weet ik niet precies. Ik kan niet echt iets karakteristieks noemen en er is niet zoals normaal gesproken een drang vanbinnen om wat kwijt te willen. Toch zal hieronder drie gedichten delen, in de hoop dat iemand ze leest en diep in zijn of haar ziel geraakt wordt!

Rebirth
Passageways of the soul! The soul like a young woman!
Her clear smiling light
and the history not long
and the joy of a new life…

Yes, to be born again, and walk the road,
having found the lost path!

To feel in our hand once more
the pulse of the good hand
of our mother… And to walk through life in dreams
out of love for the hand that guides us.
*
In our souls everything
moves guided by a mysterious hand
We know nothing of our own souls
that are ununderstandable and say nothing.

The deepest words
of the wise man teach us
the same as the whistle of the wind when it blows
of the sound of the water when it is flowing.

The burial of a friend
They gave him to earth one horrible afternoon
in July, under a burning sun.

One step from the open hole
Roses lay with rotting petals,
geraniums with red flowers
and pungent fragrance. The sky
clear and blue. A strong
and dry wind was blowing.

Two gravediggers
let the coffin hang there
heavily on its fat ropes
and then settle to the bottom…

And when it got there it made a loud thump
soberly in the silence.

The sound of a coffin hitting earth
is a sound utterly serious.

Dry lumps of dirt
break on the black box…

A whitish breath
rose from the deep hole, and the wind took it.

‘’And you, with no shadow now, sleep and be;
deep peace to your bones…

It is final now,
sleep your untroubled and true dream.’’

Last night as I was sleeping
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvellous error! –
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvellous error! –
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvellous error –
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt – marvellous error! –
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

Dank aan vertaling door Robert Bly

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