Your Soft Voice Fills the World: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 30

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I don’t usually credit photographs, but all photographs on my blog are taken by me. The very few exceptions will be noted.


For the last poem of the month for NaPoWriMo, we were asked to find a poem in a language we do not know and to write a “translation” based on what we think it means.  I chose a poem by an Italian 16th century poet.  His name and poem are printed below my poem, which is:

Your Soft Voice Fills the World

Your soft voice fills the world
and causes the fronds to tremble.
Oh Laura, my long love, even the trees laugh
as they spread their green blanket over my vagabond angel.
Sing your song for me
as you ride eastward
so I may hear it wherever I go.
When you speak in the night,
it resounds in the heavens.
If you want to be queen, be queen of my heart.
Our love endures in the mountains,
oh beautiful vagrant of the skies.
Both you and your words live within me.
In the end, they will sustain me like a fine cuisine.


Here is the original poem:

Ecco mormorar l’onde
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

Ecco mormorar l’onde,
E tremolar le fronde
A l’aura mattutina, e gli arboscelli,
E sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
Cantar soavemente,
E rider l’Oriente;
Ecco già l’alba appare,
E si specchia nel mare,
E rasserena il cielo,
E le campagne imperla il dolce gelo,
E gli alti monti indora:
O bella e vaga Aurora,
L’aura è tua messaggera, e tu de l’aura
Ch’ogni arso cor ristaura.

Originally, I translated the last two lines as:

The smoke of your words lives within me.
In the end, I will eat them like fine cuisine.

I loved those two images, but they seemed not to go with each other
or with the rest of the poem, so I changed them.

Here is a real translation of the poem:

 

Now the waves murmur
And the boughs and the shrubs tremble
in the morning breeze,
And on the green branches the pleasant birds
Sing softly
And the east smiles;
Now dawn already appears
And mirrors herself in the sea,
And makes the sky serene,
And the gentle frost impearls the fields
And gilds the high mountains:
O beautiful and gracious Aurora,
The breeze is your messenger, and you the breeze’s
Which revives each burnt-out heart.

 

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-thirty-2/

14 thoughts on “Your Soft Voice Fills the World: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 30”

    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      I found a blogger from my home town of 700 in S.Dak.! Such fun. Her blog is Murdo Girl and she writes only about growing up there. She was a couple of years younger than me…Interesting to read a blog from someone I have known my whole life rather than those of you who have become friends through the blog. She was a few years younger than me so we just knew who each other were… but all the people in our stories are known to us both. Fun.

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      1. Marilyn Armstrong's avatarMarilyn Armstrong

        That’s very cool. I grew up in New York and my high school had more than 5,000 people in it. So it’s not rare to bump into people who have similar memories. I bumped into classmates in Jerusalem and here in Massachusetts … kids who are in my 6th grade class photos. For you, it must be much more rare a treat 🙂

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        1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

          I go to a town reunion every 5 years. This is the year. People from every class all go back–and townspeople who live there or who have moved away. Fun. I’ve been to all but one or two, I believe.

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            1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

              Of course in my town you knew everyone… and everyone knew you. Sometimes a good thing and sometimes bad… Of course now, it is “Now, which one of the Dykstra girls are you?” (There were 3 of us. No boys.)

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