from Oh Death. Minimal Odes
Hilda Hilst
translation by Laura Cescarco Eglin
I
Fui pássaro e onça
Criança e mulher.
Numa tarde de sombras
Fui teu passo.
IX
Os cascos enfaixados
Para que eu não ouça
Teu duro trote.
É assim, cavalinha,
Que me virás buscar?
Ou porque te pensei
Severa e silenciosa
Virás criança
Num estilhaço de louças?
Amante
Porque te desprezei?
Ou com ares de rei
Porque te fz rainha?
XVI
Cavalo, búfalo, cavalinha
Te amo, amiga, morte minha,
Se te aproximas, salto
Como quem quer e não quer
Ver a colina, o prado, o outeiro
Do outro lado, como quem quer
E não ousa
Tocar teu pêlo, o ouro
O coruscante vermelho do teu couro
Como quem não quer.
XXXIX
Uns barcos bordados
No último vestido
Para que venham comigo
As confssões, o riso
Quietude e paixão
De meus amigos.
Porque guardei palavras
Numa grande arca
E as levarei comigo
Peço uns barcos bordados
No último vestido
E vagas
Finas, desenhadas
Manso friso
Como as crianças desenham
Em azul as águas.
Uns barcos
Para a minha volta à Terra:
Este duro exercício
Para o meu espírito.
I
I was bird and jaguar
child and woman.
In an afternoon of shadows
I was your stride.
IX
Your hooves bandaged
so I won’t hear
your hard trot.
Is this, little mare,
how you’ll come for me?
Or because I thought you
severe and silent
you’ll come as a child
on a shard of china?
Lover
because I disdained you?
Or with the airs of a king
because I made you queen?
XVI
Horse, bufalo, little mare
I love you, friend, my death,
if you approach, I jump
as one who wants and doesn’t want
to see the hill, the meadow, the mound
on the other side, as one who wants
and doesn’t dare
touch your fur—gold
the bright red of your skin
as one who doesn’t want.
XXXIX
Some boats embroidered
in my last dress
so they come with me:
the confessions, the laughter
the quiet and passion
of my friends.
Because I kept words
in a large chest
and I’ll take them with me
I ask for some embroidered boats
in my last dress
and waves
delicate, drawn
gentle frieze
like children color
the waters blue.
Some boats
for my return to Earth:
this hard exercise
for my spirit.
Translating the first collection, Of Death. Minimal Odes (co-im-press) of Hilda Hilst’s significant body of poetry to appear in English, Laura Cescarco Eglin renders the imagery and philosophical complexity of these minimal odes with brio, while preserving the playful tone and lush melodies that mark Of Death. Minimal Odes as uniquely Hilstian.
Laura Cesarco Eglin is a poet and translator. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Calling Water by Its Name, translated by Scott Spanbauer (Mouthfeel Press, 2016), Sastrería (Yaugurú, 2011), and Los brazos del saguaro (Yaugurú, 2015). She is also the author of two chapbooks, Occasions to Call Miracles Appropriate (The Lune, 2015) and Tailor Shop: Threads (Finishing Line Press, 2013), translated collaboratively into English with Teresa Williams.
The Brazilian poet, playwright, fiction writer, and essayist, Hilda Hilst was born in 1930 and died in 2004. She is the author of forty books. Literary critics consider her to be one of the most important and controversial twentieth-century writers in the Portuguese language. Because of her strong personality, beauty, intelligence, and her eccentricities, and because Hilst consistently questioned and went against norms and traditions, the myth surrounding Hilst’s image has often overshadowed the importance of her work and the critical analysis of her oeuvre. She was the author honored in the sixteenth FLIP (Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty) in 2018.