La Cuanna
Ron Yazinski Ron Yazinski
Over sixty years ago, the French poet Yvan Goll composed a series Of preposterous elegies for the Lackawanna River. Ill, worn by loving and imagining, He fashioned palaces and ruby encrusted walkways, Above which exotic birds were singing in richly blossoming trees; Children laughing and splashing in warm, clean waters, Chasing brightly-colored fish That were always just a teasing length away; Beautiful women in fine, shear clothing, Highlighting their enticing shapes. And men, strong and polite, Who every night entertain their families By ordering servants to release little lanterns in paper boats on the waters While they sing of ancient heroes and caring gods Until the first hints of dawn. When I first read this In Galway Kinnell‘s translation, I wanted to go and live there, Except that I already lived there. Where, as a child, I threw a rock at my image in the sluggish waters, Waters said to poison rats, And lost my balance, fell into that river. When I brought my dripping and bloodied self home, My mother screamed at me And slapped my older brother, who was supposed to be watching me, Because now my new shoes had to be thrown away. So, evidently, Goll had never been here, Which, as every man knows, Is a prerequisite for describing Eden. He had built a world around the sound of a word, Lackawanna, Lackawanna, his European ear discerning a hint of a world without need. Imagine a universe in which this irony couldn‘t happen. A Mexican songwriter came upon Kinnell‘s English translation of the French And turned it into a popular Mexican song, Complete with duende in the heated refrain:
La Cuanna, La Cuanna, Where the men are fire and the women are steam. La Cuanna, La Cuanna, Where the gods go when they dream.