"In a summer’s day shadow"

a translation (and a bonus inside)

Stranger woman, a cold fire’s your gaze,
Bitter love’s embrace.
How you’re staring at me- through and through.

And reminder, hides the unmade bed,
How it happened that
I became thus invaded by you.

And when I closed my eyes,
Vain again were all tries,
To conjure up your face

Smell of dust in your hair,
Gaze turns shadow, like day
Of the summer that fades

Blood in your laughter’s taste,
Honey skin, body’s maze
In a summer’s day shadow
That goes and fades.

…Ugliness reigns in the streets supreme
Winter enters, grim.
Windows mirror the gray of the skies.

I’ve been looking for you everywhere,
Maybe random second-and out of it, there,
You’ll be born again before my eyes?

Only you’re nowhere to be found,
Old longing, like off-key sound
Doesn’t let me rest and drives me mad.


Smell of dust in your hair,
Gaze turns shadow, like day
Of that summer that fades

Blood in your laughter’s taste,
Honey skin, body’s maze
In a summer’s day shadow
That goes and fades.

Goes and fades,
Everything goes and fades.

*as far as I know myself-it’s take 1

** every language I know is somehow “shorter”, more compact, than, say, Russian. Even Ukrainian is. English for sure is.

Hebrew is most compact than all of them, making translations harder, requiring more gift-or concessions. I’m afraid, in my case,- it’s concessions.

*** This was the first song of the singer that I listened to, years ago, and loved. There are several more songs of his that I’d like to translate-maybe I’ll get there, one day.

****I’m insane, so if I disappear more, from here, -or appear with some “такое ошушение, что вы бредите”-please keep it in mind?…

Part of the insanity is good old health-related stuff, and as such, doesn’t really depend on me. I usually distance myself from the humankind when it happens. Or try to.

*****The link to the song

and the original lyrics

I do remember-vaguely-seeing a good translation of it, a few years back.

I deliberately didn’t go looking for it, when I attempted mine, because I suspect it’d be then “they did a great job, mine’s not needed”. But one can google it quite easily, I suppose.

******A bonus for you:

A COUPLE OF SEASONS

Autumn is a boy
sitting in a pile of leaves
wanting a winter girl.
She is sitting on snow
wanting an autumn boy.

He found her walking lonely.
She is like a flake.
He is like a rake,
grabbing her to keep her close by.

She sits on a pile of snow.
He sits on a pile of leaves.
Her eyes are sparkling,
His hair is windblown.

But when the autumn boy ends,
thwe winter girl begins.
The autumn boy can no longer see her,
The winter girl can no longer see him.

(by Jared Frenkel; found in “Anthology of Poetry and Written Expression”, Grade Five

Seprember 2006-June 2007

The school is in Stamford, Connecticut. )

*************************

Love,

Chen/April