The Furious Spinner

One of the things I read to Linda tonight was a book by Ram Dass that she really likes. I was astonished and moved by the following poem he quotes by Machado de Assis*:

As I lay sleeping, I dreamt
O, marvelous error—
That there was a beehive here inside my heart
And the golden bees were making white combs
And sweet honey from all my failures


*This poem has also been attributed to another Machado. I'm not really certain right now who wrote it. But ain't it grand? 3 comments

3 Comments:

How marvelous! I love this. Another keeper for the growing file of poems about imperfection, humility, growth, movement. The Karate Poems.

Poked around a little, and saw a couple of Assis attributions, too, but it looks like it's more consistently attributed to Antonio Machado (Spain, 1875-1939).

Robert Bly's translation appears the most (I can't stand Robert Bly for his gender politics, but he's a fine collector of poetry, for sure). Here's the whole thing, (since I was procrastinating and looking this up was more fun):

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt - marvelous error! -
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt - marvelous error! -
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleepng,
I dreamt - marvelous error! -
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I was sleepng,
I dreamt - marvelous error! -
that it was God I had here
inside my heart.


Thanks for passing this on, Kim!

By  Theriomorph, at 8:11 AM  

Kim me heart, I think (like Theriomorph who beat me to it with the whole thing) that this gorgeous poem was written by the Spanish Machado (Antonio), who wrote gorgeous but rather melancholy verse. The Bly translation seems to be the most common one, and it appears in a collection of metaphysical verse which I have here and love dipping into now and again. BB, Cate

By  kerrdelune, at 11:00 AM  

Hello you two! Thanks for the entire poem. I did see the Bly version. (His male stuff makes me uncomfortable, too.) But I liked the "O marvelous error!" best so I used the Ram Dass translation, although he said it was the other Machado. (I would never in a million years have read Ram Dass, by the way, because of my own preconceived ideas, but this book I read to Linda is actually quite interesting. He had a stroke and he wrote this one after it. She takes me places daily that I would not ordinarily go. Bless her heart.) And I love the idea that my (vast) failures are just part of the process of making honey.

By  Kim Antieau, at 11:12 AM  

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