Sunday, July 14, 2013

Of Work and Distractions

As I lay here believing mistruths I myself had conjured
That this visage of success arises; in ashes I see:
No reprieve in wastes, in this or that to which I ruptured
In believing, that my dreams will take flight in effortless glee.

To work I say to it: come, capture me with lenses that focus
On goals to which burdened me with no joy to be found,
Possess my mind and take what fate has planned to loose
And knot my heart to learn, a job I'm forever bound.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

To The Man I Married by Angela Manalang-Gloria (Filipino Translation and Analysis )

A Philippine Literature course activity, translating the poem: To The Man I Married.
The instructions didn't include adding a meter; only rhymes were necessary. However, I went ahead and gave my translation both rhyme and meter. 
(I do not claim ownership of the poem "To The Man I Married")

Original:
TO THE MAN I MARRIED
by Angela Manalang-Gloria

I
You are my earth and all the earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
You are the final, elemented clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!