Más Atahualpa / El Poeta

Question

You consider yourself special
Becuase they call you poet
You inhabit a wold apart
More distant than the stars.

So much looking at the moon**
Still you know nothing of looking(or of what you see')**
You are like a poor blind man
Who knows not where he goes

Go, watch the miners,
Those who toil in the wheat
And sing to those who fight
for a crumb of bread.

Poet of tender rhymes
Go and live in the forest
And you will learn many things
Of the woodsman and his miseries

Live together with the people
Dont observe them from outside
The first thing is to be a man
And the second, a poet.
So much looking at the moon?

Tu piensas que eres distinto
Porque te dicen poeta,
Y tienes un mundo aparte
Mas allá de las estrellas.

De tanto mirar la luna
Ya nada sabes mirar.
Eres como un pobre ciego
Que no sabe adónde va.

Vete á mirar los mineros,
Los hombres en el trigal,
Y cántales a los que luchan
Por un pedazo de pan.

Poeta de tiernas rimas,
Vete a vivir a la selva,
Y aprenderás muchas cosas
Del hachero y sus miserias.

Vive junto con el pueblo,
No lo mires desde afuera,
Que lo primero es ser hombre,
Y lo segundo, poeta.
De tanto mirar la luna...

Answer 1

Hey, this is one of my favourite songs in Spanish, though I thought it was by Jorge Cafrune.

"Ya nada sabes mirar" implies that the poet once did know what he was looking at but has now lost that ability, through having his head in the clouds.

Not that he hasn´t yet achieved that ability.

Answer 2

Hey, this is one of my favourite songs in Spanish, though I thought it was by Jorge Cafrune.

"Ya nada sabes mirar" implies that the poet once did know what he was looking at but has now lost that ability, through having his head in the clouds.

Not that he hasn´t yet achieved that ability.

Hey Thanks for the reply, I didn't think anyone was going to offer anything up this time. so then maybe: From so much looking at the moon, Now you don't understand what you see.

If you like this , Check out this page http://www.sreyes.org/atacancionero.htm, and Yupanqui in general. I started translating his stuff because I find it so good in so many ways. Listen to him. He talks most of this stuff to argentinian folk rhythms and his own guitar accompaniment. Even the ones I can't understand I love to listen too because the recitation is so musical. Thanks again