zodiac4 May 2004

Looking at it now, I don't know why I didn't go with a lot of easier (and at least decasyllabic) word-choices. These days I wouldn't really give a fuck except to convey something of the same feeling of meter. I did Alfonsina Storni's "Ancestral Burden (Peso ancestral)" like this:

You’d always tell me: My father never wept;
My grandfather, never, nor his father before;
You told me, and so the men of our race have kept
As hard as ore.

So you would tell me, and your tear would fall
Into my open mouth - A poison so deadly
I never could have found in a vial so small,
Or given so readily.

Weak woman, fragile woman who bore it,
The heaviness of Mankind, you taught me your hunger.
Oh, but I feel this soul of mine can’t support
Your burden much longer!