A poem by Antonio Machado

The poetry gods will smite me for this: 1) for having the damn-fool nerve to translate as best I can [which is to say, badly] something by one of the greatest poets that ever lived, and 2) for the suggestion, however unintended, that a dog's death is in any way comparable to the death of a person; but what the heck - this is a great, great poem and I like translating things. Plus, you know, death.

The Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote this poem in the spring of 1912. His wife Leonor had been diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis — she died in August of that year.

A un olmo seco

  Al olmo viejo, hendido por el rayo
y en su mitad podrido,
con las lluvias de abril y el sol de mayo,
algunas hojas verdes le han salido.
  ¡El olmo centenario en la colina
que lame el Duero! Un musgo amarillento
le mancha la corteza blanquecina
al tronco carcomido y polvoriento.
  No será, cual los álamos cantores
que guardan el camino y la ribera,
habitado de pardos ruiseñores.
  Ejército de hormigas en hilera
va trepando por él, y en sus entrañas
urden sus telas grises las arañas.
  Antes que te derribe, olmo del Duero,
con su hacha el leñador, y el carpintero
te convierta en melena de campana,
lanza de carro o yugo de carreta;
antes que rojo en el hogar, mañana,
ardas en alguna mísera caseta,
al borde de un camino;
antes que te descuaje un torbellino
y tronche el soplo de las sierras blancas;
antes que el río hasta la mar te empuje
por valles y barrancas,
olmo, quiero anotar en mi cartera
la gracia de tu rama verdecida.
Mi corazón espera
también, hacia la luz y hacia la vida,
otro milagro de la primavera.

  The old elm, split by lightning
and rotted inside,
with the rains in April and the sun in May
has sprouted a few green leaves.
  The hundred-year-old elm on the hill
lapped by the Duero! Yellow moss
mottles the pale bark
of its trunk, worm-eaten and dusty.
  It won't be like the singing cottonwoods
along the road and the riverbank,
the home of brown nightingales.
  An army of ants in single file
goes climbing through it, and in its hollows
spiders weave their grey webs.
  Before he chops you down, Duero elm,
with his woodcutter's axe,
and the carpenter makes a bell's beam of you,
or a cart tongue or a wagon yoke;
before you redden the hearth of some poor shelter, tomorrow,
at the road's edge;
before a dust storm uproots you
and winds from the white mountains tear you apart;
before the river carries you to the sea
through valleys and canyons,
elm, I long to put into words
the grace of your green bough.
And my heart also
yearns, towards light and towards life,
for another miracle of spring.

The Duero. Photo by Denis Doyle for the New York Times.