THE DRENKA WILLEN PRIZE FOR POETRY IN TRANSLATION

Madonna, I would like to tell you
about how a love has taken me prisoner
despite the great indifference
that you demonstrate, and Beautiful, you don't help me.
O alas, my heart,
which in much pain is here laid bare!
The mulberry lives to give its life
to good lovers.
Therefore, should I die or live?
No, but my heart
dies more often and strongly
when it cannot die of natural causes.
For you, Lady, it loves
in dreams
even as you continuously refuse it.
Love, I have disgraced myself before your friends.

These words cannot give birth
to even a part of my love,
but this is how I feel.
The heart neither thinks nor speaks,
and all that I say becomes nothing.
I walk in the street before you
amid this great chorus.
The fire in the heart cannot go out.
It goes on pouring out smoke.
Why doesn't it consume me?
The salamander, I hear,
remains healthy inside the fire.
I have also lived long
in the fire of love
and I don't filter the things I say.
I am the stalk which doesn't produce grain.

Madonna, I send this birdlike greeting
which cannot come
bearing the adequate phrases;
the things which are right with love.
My heart feels
like a man with an itch.
It cannot go quiet until
it can touch your tender skin.
Like one who paints and then erases what he paints,
my heart's trouble never ends.
I always dislike
the paintings that I make. I scold myself
because I know it isn't natural
for a painting to match the world exactly.
And no, don't blame yourself
if the man falls into the sea--if you cling to him.

Your love
in the tempestuous sea
is like the boat
which fortune mightily dumps over.
The people aboard live despite
their fall into the dangerous water.
Similarly, I am cast
into you, and Beautiful, there I sigh and cry
hoping that you don't dump me over.
It seems like I sink
(it is good to sink)
into the heart of your desire, where the pressure is great.
The tempest so surrounds the land
that it cuts it off.
I am so shattered
when I sigh and cry, that I lay aside crying and seem at peace.

I have demonstrated much
to you, pitiless Lady,
about how I am in love.
This is only paint.
Since I have been alone for a lapse of time
maybe destiny has no date for us.
Why don't I let this go?
It is not possible. In this disguise love has defeated me.
I want my heart
to burst forth,
and show how it has made itself the incarnation of everything.
And I cannot say a word lest I feel overconfident.
Love has tightened around me
so much, that if it were a viper
it would change its natural cruelty.
And if I see it reduced in this way,
I should become pious.