O’er all my song the image of a face
Lieth, like shadow on the wild sweet flowers.
The dream, the ecstasy that prompts my powers;
The golden lyre’s delights bring little grace
To bless the singer of a lowly race.
Long hath this mocked me: aye in marvelous hours,
When Hera’s gardens gleamed, or Cynthia’s bowers,
Or Hope’s red pylons, in their far, hushed place!
But I shall dig me deeper to the gold;
Fetch water, dripping, over desert miles.
From clear Nyanzas and mysterious Niles
Of love; and sing, nor one kind act withhold.
So shall men know me, and remember long,
Nor my dark face dishonor any song.
From The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson. This poem is in the public domain.
translated from the Spanish by Ursula K. Le Guin
Life of my life, what you loved I sing.
If you're near, if you’re listening,
remembering earth, in the evening,
my life, my shadow, hear me sing.
Life of my life, I can’t be still.
What is a story we never tell?
How can you find me unless I call?
Life of my life, I haven’t changed,
not turned aside and not estranged.
Come to me as the shadows grow long,
come, life of my life, if you know the song
you used to know, if you know my name.
I and the song are still the same.
Beyond time or place I keep the faith.
Follow a path or follow no path,
don’t fear the night or the rainy wind.
call me to come to you, now at the end,
and come to me, soul of my soul, my friend.
Canto Que Amabas
Yo canto lo que tú amabas, vida mía,
por si te acercas y escuchas, vida mía,
por si te acuerdas del mundo que viviste,
al atardecer yo canto, sombra mía.
Yo no quiero enmudecer, vida mía.
¿Cómo sin mi grito fiel me hallarías?
¿Cuál señal, cuál me declara, vida mía?
Soy la misma que fue tuya, vida mía.
Ni lenta ni trascordada ni perdida.
Acude al anochecer, vida mía;
ven recordando un canto, vida mía,
si la canción reconoces de aprendida
y si mi nombre recuerdas todavía.
Te espero sin plazo ni tiempo.
No temas noche, neblina ni aguacero.
Acude con sendero o sin sendero.
Llámame a donde tú eres, alma mía,
0201y marcha recto hacia mí, compañero.
From Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral: Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyright © 2003 Ursula K. Le Guin. Courtesy of University of New Mexico Press.
I am the river of Spavinaw,
I am the river of pain;
Sadness and gladness must answer my law;
Measure for measure I give, and withdraw
Back through the hills of the Spavinaw,
Hiding away from the plain.
I am the river of Spavinaw;
I sing the songs of the world;
Dashing and whirling, swishing and swirling,
Delicate, mystical, silvery spray hurling,
Sing I the songs of the world,
The passionate songs of the world.
I sing of laughter and mirth,
And I laugh in a gurgle of glee
As the myriad joys of the earth
Trip through the light with me.
Gay shallows dimple, sparkle and ripple.
Like songs that a lover would sing,
Skipping in moonlight,
Tripping in moonlight,
Whispering echoes of spring.
And again
I move with the slow sadness of pain.
In my dark blue deep, where the shadows creep,
I catch up life’s sorrows and mirror them back again.
And my song is a throbbing, pitiful sobbing,
Choked by an agonized pain.
And then
I move forth toward the beckoning north,
And I sing of the power of men.
As I dash down my falls,
As I beat at my walls
Frantically fighting, running and righting,
All through the flood, through the snarling and biting,
I sing of the power of men,
Of the hurry and power of men.
I am the river of Spavinaw,
I am the giver of pain;
Sadness and gladness must answer my law;
Measure for measure I give, and withdraw
Back through the hills of the Spavinaw,
Hiding away from the plain.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 15, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
What makes a voice distinct? What special quality makes it indelible? Yours is plaintive, as any singer of torch songs must be, yet endowed with confidence, and fully in command. Deep and resonant, a bit husky if you like. A voice that rises— or skyrockets, rather—from a wellspring of pure emotion. Manically infatuated in “I Only Want to Be with You.” Desperate to keep your lover from leaving in “Stay Awhile.” Despondent in “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” and “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.” All cried out in “All Cried Out.” But then amazingly on the rebound in “Brand New Me.” I hear your voice, Dusty, and I am instantly whisked back in time, not quite a teenager all over again, full of longing and confusion, listening to your latest hit on my red plastic transistor radio on a mid-sixties Los Angeles suburban summer afternoon. Twice in my life, I found myself in the same room as you. Can one fathom anything more miraculous? The first time was in 1983, late November, in the basement of a church in Los Feliz, around the corner from where I lived. Sober only a few weeks, I watched you approach the podium, but didn’t realize who you were until you identified yourself as “Dusty S.” For the next twenty minutes, you told us the story of your drinking. How early in your career, backstage before a performance, one of the Four Tops handed you your first drink, vodka. How smoothly it went down and loosened you up, lit you from within, gave you enough courage to go out on stage, into that blinding spot, and sing like no one else. The alcohol eventually stopped working— it always does, that brand of magic is transient— and here you were, two decades later, sober and clean and still singing, so to speak, before a live audience. In my youth, your words had come over the radio and stirred feelings of heartbreak and infatuation. Now they inspired me to keep coming back. The second time, 1987, four years sober, at a more upscale meeting at Cedars-Sinai in West Hollywood, I sat directly behind you. It was hard to breathe being in such close proximity. I didn’t hear a word the speaker said. During his drunkalog, I slowly, surreptitiously, moved the toe of my white high-top until it touched the back of your folding chair. Then said a little prayer. I hoped (should I be embarrassed admitting this?) that some of your stardust might travel down the metal leg of your chair, like a lightning rod, and be passed on to me. It’s after midnight again, Dusty, half a century since, on a suburban lawn or alone in my room, I suffered through hits by Paul Revere & the Raiders and Herman’s Hermits, just to experience two or three minutes of your sultry voice. I’m on YouTube again, watching the black-and-white video of you singing “I Only Want to Be with You.” Your 1964 appearance on some teen variety show. I’ve viewed it innumerable times, but it’s always exciting to see you dance out of the darkness into the round spotlight, exuberant as the song’s intro, arms outspread, in a chiffon cocktail dress and high heels, your platinum hair, sprayed perfectly in place, as bright and shiny as the moon. Midway through the song—the instrumental bridge—you turn and sashay around the edge of the spotlight, the ruffled hem of your chiffon dress twisting with your hips and intricate footwork. Circle circling circle: your full backlit hair orbiting the pool of white light in the center of the stage. I watch this again and again, like Bashō’s moon walking around the pond all night long.
Copyright © 2018 by David Trinidad. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 13, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.