Status Updates From Καβάφης: Άπαντα Ποιητικά

Esta edición de 1991 con la portada de Lawrence Alma-Tadema "En la cuna de Afrodita" es simplemente preciosa. La traducción de Pedro Bardenas es la mejor. Lo único malo: no es bilingüe. Cavafis es capaz de curar el alma.

Impossible Things

There is one joy alone, but one that’s blessed,
one consolation only in this pain.
How many thronging vulgar days were missed
because of this ending; how much ennui.


A poet has said: “The loveliest
music is the one that cannot be played.”
And I, I daresay that by far the best
life is the one that cannot be lived.

The Windows

In these shadowed rooms, in which I pass
gloomy days, up and down I pace
that I might find the windows.—For a window
to be open would be a consolation.—
But there are no windows, or I can’t
find them. And perhaps it’s best I don’t.
Perhaps the light will be a new oppression.
Who knows what new things it will show.

Those two last lines. Goodness.

In The Same Space

House, coffeehouses, neighborhood: setting
that I see and where I walk; year after year.

I crafted you amid joy and amid sorrows:
out of so much that happened, out of so many things.

And you’ve been wholly remade into feeling; for me.