When I once told a Latino friend of my desire to learn Spanish (probably in my own broken vocabulary), he told me I was wise, as Spanish was the language of heaven.
I didn’t disagree.
I first read Antonio Machado’s poem Caminante no hay camino in a book by Brené Brown, and it has since come back to mind often when the future seems less certain than I’d prefer.
And somehow it rings truer in its original language… see the full poem and translation below. Also, similar to last week, playing with a “grand reveal” layout in the zine.
Caminante, no hay camino
Caminante, son tus huellas
– Antonio Machado
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.
There are a few translations available. I like the one below, but this translation by Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney uses the word “traveler” rather than “wanderer”, which sits better for me. But I love the line “the path is made by walking” below.
Wanderer, your footprints are
– “Proverbios y cantares XXIX” [Proverbs and Songs 29], Poesías Completas (1917); trans. Betty Jean Craige in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Louisiana State University Press, 1979) #
the path, and nothing else;
wanderer, there is no path,
the path is made by walking.
Walking makes the path,
and on glancing back
one sees the path
that must never be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no path—
Just your wake in the sea.