I Am Going To Sleep
Monday, July 09, 2018
Desganado (from the root ganas to want and des for the opposite) is a word that is defining me these last two days. I am not hungry and I have no desire to eat. Food does not taste (a result of old age) and the very idea of eating makes me feel sick. I am dizzy (no calories) and feel sleepy. Our Stickley bed beckons and the idea of lying down with Casi our cat is about the only desire I have that is pleasant.
Paradoxically
I am stressed out because I have finished printing my show at the Galería
Vermeer, mid-September in Buenos Aires. I will be sharing the space with my
Argentine artist friend Nora Patrich.
I am
stressed out because I have been left wanting. The printing was almost a snap.
What now?
I spotted
this b+w negative of the Argentine subject of mine Yuki. Before I even met her
in person she had indicated that she wanted to do something related with the
European-born (at the Argentine Embassy in Capriasca, Switzerland) but famous
Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni. When she found out she had cancer she
published a poem in La Nación before she committed suicide in Mar del Plata.
The story is that she walked into the sea and drowned.
When I
noticed that Nora Patrich’s swimming pool was empty I decided that I could do
something to honour Yuki’s request. Patrich has a fine garden so we cut two
callas (Zandeschia aethiopica) for the photograph. I shot it in colour, too but
I have a fondness for this one.
And yet I
still feel desganado.
The poem Voy a dormir (I am going to sleep in Spanish and English): below
Voy a
dormir
Alfonsina
Storni (1938)
Dientes
de flores, cofia de rocío,
manos de
hierbas, tú, nodriza fina,
tenme
prestas las sábanas terrosas
y el
edredón de musgos encardados.
Voy a
dormir, nodriza mía, acuéstame,
ponme
una lámpara a la cabecera;
una
constelación; la que te guste;
todas
son buenas; bájala un poquito.
Déjame
sola: oyes romper los brotes…
te acuna
un pie celeste desde arriba
y un
pájaro te traza unos compases
para que
olvides… Gracias. Ah, un encargo:
si él
llama nuevamente por teléfono
le dices
que no insista, que he salido…
Translation
by Richard E. McDorman
© 2011
I’m
Going to Sleep
Alfonsina
Storni (last poem, 1938)
Teeth of
petals, bonnet of dew,
handfuls
of herbs, oh sweet nursemaid,
turn the
earthly sheets down for me
and
prepare my quilt of carded moss.
I’m
going to sleep, my nursemaid—lay me down;
put a
lamp on the nightstand for me,
or a
constellation, whichever you like—
both are
fine; turn the lights down a bit.
Now
leave me alone and hear the buds break …
as
you’re rocked by a heavenly foot from above,
and a
bird zigzags you a path
so that
you can forget … Thank you. Oh, a favor:
if he
calls again
tell him
not to insist, for I have gone away …
