Who in the moment of my happiness
(God forgive my using a word so grand,
so terrible) reduced my brief delight
nearly to tears? No doubt you'll say: "A certain
beautiful creature who was walking by
and smiled at you." But no: a child's balloon,
a blue, meandering balloon against
the azure of the air, my native sky
never so clear and cold as it was then,
at high noon on a dazzling winter day.
That sky with here and there a wisp of cloud,
and upper windows flaming in the sun,
and faint smoke from a chimney, maybe two,
and over everything, every divine
thing, that globe that had escaped a boy's
incautious fingers (surely he was out there
broadcasting through the crowded square his grief,
his immense grief) between the great facade
of the Stock Exchange and the café where I,
behind a window, watched with shining eyes
the rise and fall of what he once possessed.
Notes
translated by Geoffrey Brock
Leave a guest comment (subject to review)
Comments
-
A deep, gentle sadness in this... speaks of all that we lose in life - innocence and assured joy. A lost balloon does seem to rip something, more than tears, out of a child when his balloon escapes. Reminiscing about his native sky -"That sky," the roofs holding a special enchantment for him as the balloon floats everything divine. The balloon, a globe - and all that it represents, escapes and the boy's immense grief speaks for the poet.
-
There is a foreign film, The Red Balloon, that deals along the content of this poem--loss of innocence and social stability. I like how the more is connected with the act of a child loosing a balloon. Saba's bio indicates that his mixed background (Christian/Jew) created serious problems during WWII. Saba also suffered from a form of depression. I often wonder how much of the poet's life is reflected in his or her work; in this case, I wonder if the abandonment of his father, the persecution of the Jewish people and or his depression was the source of his tears (line 4). Saba's apology for using the word "happiness" is so moving. Imagine, happiness as "so grand, so terrible". Nice literary touch. More about Saba and a published translation review of his work can be found at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/magazine/back_issues/shearsman60/obrien_saba.html
Adding your comment:
