When you set out for Baja
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Seri and the Cochimí,
angry Huixtocihuatl - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Seri and the Cochimí,
angry Huixtocihuatl - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Winter dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at peninsular trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
sage and leather, silver and pearl,
and textiles of every kind,
textiles as lavishly as you can;
to visit many cities in the Americas,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Baja always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach Lands End you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Baja to give you wealth.
Baja gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Baja hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what Californio means.
(adapted - slightly - from the poem "Ithaka")woody with a view - 1-4-2017 at 06:36 AM
"The poem was written in November 1898 and first published in 1904.[1] It depicts a day in an unnamed city-state where everything has come to a halt
because the population is awaiting the arrival of "the barbarians", whom they plan to welcome.
Daniel Mendelsohn (one of many translators who has produced an English version of "Waiting") has said that the poem's portrayal of a state whose
lawmakers sit in stagnant idleness was "particularly prescient" in light of the United States federal government shutdown of 2013.
Robert Pinsky has described it as "cunning" and "amusing".[4] Charles Simić has called it "an apt description of any state that needs enemies,
real or imaginary, as a perpetual excuse",[1] while the Independent considered the poem's final line evocative of "the dangers implied by the end of
the Cold War"."
Bravo, Doug, what follows is the sound of my hands clapping in applause - xxxxxxxx... Aldervale - 1-4-2017 at 05:34 PM
We met many Seri in Sonora near Isla Tiberon.
Were they , are they, living on the Baja side also ?
Aldervale
I Can't Go to Off Topic
GypsyJan - 1-4-2017 at 05:53 PM
So I am posting Cafavy's poem here.
Waiting for the Barbarians The Canon
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press,
1992) BajaNomad - 1-4-2017 at 08:10 PM
great adaptation!Nashville Frank - 1-5-2017 at 11:59 AM
Doug,
I'm impressed! Very nice! It stirs my heart!
This makes this Newbie see these BajaNomad folks in a whole different light! You've got something I'm yearning for, that I set about to find with my
recent return to Baja in 2016. Yes you guys are full of the "wheres", the "whats", the "whens", the "hows"; but you also possess the "whys" deep in
your hearts. That's what I seek! Your adaptation gives us a peak into what you hold in there. The WHY Baja!
Thank you! Aldervale - 1-5-2017 at 01:04 PM
The Seri were very helpful to us.
We were tent camping near some tidal flats not too far from a seasonal fishing camp.
We went to visit and somehow I mentioned it was my birthday.....he gave me a fish for dinner.
I seem to recall one of the ladies telling me she did not speak Spanish.....mostly their own dialect.
Hope still wears a shell necklace she bought from another Seri person we met elsewhere near the sea...all about 1999.
