Napo 21: Homophonic Translations

I never really like doing homophonic translations, but I humored myself today and just gave it a try. I'm staving off a migraine, so I needed a sort of easy assignment anyway. But then, at the same time, I want to write something that maybe made a semblence of sense. If I can return today to the blog, I'm going to do another prompt, but if not, then this will count as Napo 21 (the homophonic translation) and Napo 22: a poem that I salvaged from the wreckage of it.


In Uncertain Times (Homophonic Translation)

In uncertain times,

a somberness emerges

that I try to stifle

clandestinely

as it dances across the plains.

In uncertain times,

I can’t breathe.

Penitence stifles,

Careens, prevails.

The whooping cranes,

The bluebonnets,

say that toil,

say that betting on humans

will flank temporarily

on the platform of fortune

in the constellation of largess

and dance upon the billiards of sand.

Tuna passes, abandons and deprives

Our uses.

The umber emerges from the current,

Listlessly over the dunes

Traces the millions of dairy cows

With a concave glace,

Protects them from ultra violet,

But doesn’t guarantee

The touch of noise, the listless dunes,

The suffering sands of the brute,

The tunas abandon and deprive our uses.

The umber emerges, plans to dance

On the plains, ignores its promises,

Long and metallic and vibrant,

Listless and poor,

Served on a platform of a bad,

No less musical, entrenched,

Protected, not guaranteeing

Our futures.

The Fickleness of Shadows

They melt at noon each day—

The shade the mesquite trees cast,

The shadows the cranes wading in the water

As they study the shadow of fishes,

The sundial’s shadow that slips

Across the day, and the shadow

My own body casts, waxing and waning.

And if a shadow is a kind of sadness,

A coolness in against the impossible joy

Of the morning and the sweet kiss of dusk,

A place to tuck the giant constellation of regret,

To rest the smile, to close the eyes,

And bask, protected from the sun,

Then bless the shadow as it dances

Through the day, joyless, its arms

Flailing like the branches of the trees,

As each day, it fizzles away, only

Rekindle itself in the cold recesses

Of the brain as the sun begins

its slow and merciful descent