Rubén Dario, El Pájaro Azul

(azul volatil)
no copyright infringement intended

París es teatro divertido y terrible...


A poem in prose by Rubén Darío, the portrait of one of those Parisian poètes maudits, leaving his days and nights in the tapis-franc (the grog-room so to speak, el cuartucho destartalado) of Café Plombier, a buen bebedor de ajenjo (in other words a fine absinthe drinker), never drunk, always dreaming impossible dreams, un caballero del vino triste, impeccable bohemian, with stanzas written on the chalk of the walls there, obsessed with his pájaro azul, the blue bird from his head, painfully dreaming to fly one day... the universe of Verlaine and Rimbaud, and all those pintores, escultores, poetas - sí, ¡todos buscando el viejo laurel verde!, one by one destroyed by that voracious and cruel universe of Paris. A universe like a dream, a dream slipping softly into a nightmare, to become a dream again... le Paris de la Bohème... one day he will pass away, and the pájaro azul will be at last free to fly toward the azure of the sky.

Le Paris de la Bohème, that so many artists have depicted in words, or in colors, or in music. The description of Rubén Darío has a very well contained pathos.

Here is the poem:

El Pájaro Azul

and here is an English rendering, by Jose Hidalgo:

The Blue Bird

(video by Franz serrano rodriguez)

(Rubén Darío)