Not the primary color of red but heavy gray weaving up her obedient fate| Borges

∞ Author, 1960

The Maker

Suzanne Soka[1]

With slow love she watched the evening

Loose colors. She was happy

Get lost in complex music

Or the strange life of the Psalms.

Not the primary color of red but heavy gray

Weaving up her obedient fate,

It is used to distinguishing trade-offs, and it is also familiar with it

Wobbly, subtlely ambiguous.

She didn't have the guts to step into this dazed place

Maze, she peeked out from outside

Form, riot and hustle and bustle,

Like the lady in the other mirror.

Gods who are not within reach of prayer

Abandoned her to the tiger named Flame.

Translation Notes:

[1] Susana Soca (1906–1959), Uruguayan poet, died in an air crash.

—Translated by Borges | Chen Dongbiao

—Reading and Rereading—

Susana Strain

With slow love he looked at the scattered

afternoon colors. He liked

getting lost in the complex melody

or in the curious life of the verses.

Not elemental red but grays

they spun their delicate fate,

made to discriminate and exercised

in hesitation and nuance.

Without daring to tread this perplexed

labyrinth, glimpsed from outside

the forms, the tumult and the race,

like that other lady in the mirror.

Gods who dwell beyond pleading

they abandoned her to that tiger, the Fire.

Chen Dongbiao translation and others

Caption: Suzanne Soka at Home, 1950s

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