by Alberto Blanco
1
A poem is a boat built of wood
and made by your own hands:
it's fragile, it's small,
but it can carry you as far
as the wind wants.
A poem is a boat built of wood
to drift with the flow,
until you come to a remote island
and decide to live there
forever.
2
A poem is a paper boat
made of your own words:
everything in your life fits
in the spaces formed by its folds
and its colors.
A poem is a paper boat
to set sailing across
the lake of your days
and the nighttime pond
of your fondest dreams.
3
A boy is a small boat made of wood:
and his oars are his hands,
the sails, his mind.
A girl is a small boat made of paper;
her shape is half a star
and her reflection the other part.
4
Life is a boat built of wood
sheltered by a dream. . .
but it's the water, too, where it floats,
and wind that sweeps it along,
and imagination that propels it.
Life is a paper boat. . .
but it's also a sad garden
and scarred crystals in a small lake
that reflect our globe
with all its shadows.
translated by Judith Infante
1
Un poema es un barco de madera
hecho con tus proprias manos:
es fragil, es pequeno,
pero te puede llevar tan lejos
como quiera el viento.
Un poema es un barco de madera
para viajar poco a poco,
y llegar hasta una isla lejana
y quedarte a vivir en ella
para siempre.
2
Un poema es un barco de papel
hecho con tus proprios palabras:
todo tu vida cabe en el hueco
que dejan sus pliegues,
y sus colores.
Un poema es un barco de papel
para echarlo a navegar
en el estanque de tus dias
y en la alberca nocturna
de tus mejores suenos.
3
Un nino es un barquito de madera:
sus remos son sus manos,
sus velas, su cabeza.
Una nina es un barquito de papel:
su forma es la mitad de una estrella
y su reflejo es la otra mitad.
4
La vida es un barco de madera
a la deriva de un sueno . . .
pero es tambien el agua donde flota
y el viento que lo mueve
y la imaginacion que lo provoca.
La vida es un barco de papel . . .
pero es tambien el jardin triste
y los cristales manchados del esanque
donde se refleja el mundo
con sus respectivas sombras.
from The Tree is Older Than You Are:
A Bilingual Gathering of Poems and Stories
from Mexico with Paintings by Mexican Artists
selected by Naomi Shihab Nye
Simon & Schuster, 1995
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