Two Translations of the Poet Ximena Gomez
THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY
In the dim light
From an opening in the curtains,
She dozes in her bed,
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
Playing quietly
On her radio.
From the next room,
He hears the music
Through the wall,
Reminding him
Of the wooden stereo,
The house with long hallways.
Once,
He brought home
This same symphony
On a black
Long-playing record.
She listened to it
For years.
Now they lie back,
Each one in their own bed,
Separated by a wall,
And he overhears
From her radio
The music
He gave her then.
LA SINFONÍA PASTORAL
Bajo la luz escasa
De una abertura en las cortinas
Ella dormita en su cama,
La Sinfonía pastoral de Beethoven
Suena muy quedo
En su radio.
Desde la habitación de al lado
Él alcanza a oír la música
A través de la pared
Y recuerda
El estéreo de madera,
La casa de largos corredores.
Una vez
Él trajo a casa
La misma sinfonía
En un disco negro
De larga duración.
Ella por muchos años
La escuchó.
Ahora ellos reposan
Cada uno en su cama,
Separados por una pared
Y desde el radio de ella
Él recibe la música,
Que un día le dio a ella.
A SHORT STORY
The orchid stalk
Turned yellowish
Shed all its flowers
On the pine table.
I bend to pick them up,
There is a very short story
In those few petals:
Someone left, abandoned,
On the wooden floor
Light-colored dresses,
Wrinkled, unwashed,
Fallen from a coat rack.
CUENTO BREVE
El tallo de orquídeas
Se volvió amarillento,
Echó todas las flores
En la mesa de pino.
Me inclino a recogerlas,
En esos pocos pétalos
Hay un cuento brevísimo:
Alguien se fue y dejó
Sobre el piso de tablas
Vestidos color claro,
Ajados, sin lavar,
Caídos de una percha.
Ximena Gomez is a Colombian poet, psychologist, and translator, who now lives in Miami. Her poems have appeared in Nagari, Conexos, Círculo de Poesía, Carátula, Raíz Invertida, La Libélula Vaga, and bilingually in Sheila-Na-Gig, Nashville Review, Cigar City, The Laurel Review, Gulf Stream, The Wild Word and Cagibi. She was finalist for the Best of the Net award for 2018 with her poem Last Day and the runner-Up, for Gulfstream Contest 2019. A collection of her poems, Habitación con moscas, was published by Editorial Torremozas (Madrid 2016), and a bilingual collection of her poetry, Último día/Last Day, was published by Katacama Editores (2019). She is the translator of the George Franklin’s bilingual collection of poems, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores 2018). She is a Contributor translator to 32 Poems/32 Poemas of Hyam Plutzik, the first collection of Plutzik’s work translated into Spanish, edited by Edward Moran in 2020.
George Franklin practices law in Miami and teaches writing workshops in Florida state prisons. His poems have been most recently published in Sheila-Na-Gig online, Salamander, The Wild Word, B O D Y, Matter, Scalawag, Gulf Stream, The Ghazal Page, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Vending Machine Press, Rascal, and Twyckenham Notes. Additional poems are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review and in The Amsterdam Quarterly.