This is a translation of a poem by John
of the Cross, "Dark Night."
St. John of the Cross.
After his death, he was canonized by the church.
But for most of his life, the church put him in jail.
He was a very controversial figure.
He was not only a great poet but a marvelous prose writer.
And this poem "Dark Night" is often translated.
It's generally translated by writers
that one feels are very nervous about the erotic side
of the poem.
And it's a poem that joins religious or mystical feeling
with erotic feeling, with a narrative
of an erotic encounter.
That mixture of the religious and the erotic perhaps
you will recognize from, say, Bernini's Ecstasy
of Saint Theresa, a great Baroque work.
In any case, I tried to honor in this poem both the erotic
and the mystical or religious, the transcendental burden
of the narrative.
"Dark Night."
"In a dark night, when the light burning was
the burning of love, fortuitous night, fated, free,
as I stole from my dark house, dark house that was silent,
grave, sleeping, at the staircase that was secret,
hidden, safe, disguised by darkness, fortuitous night
fated free by darkness and by cunning.
Dark house that was silent, grave, sleeping.
In that sweet night, secret, seen by no one
and seeing nothing, my only light or guide the burning
in my burning heart.
Night was the guide to the place where he for whom I waited,
whom I had long ago chosen, waits.
Night, brighter than noon in which none can see,
night was the guide, sweeter than the sun raw at dawn,
for there the burning bridegroom, his bride.
And he who chose at last is chosen.
As he lay sleeping on my sleepless
breast, kept from the beginning for him
alone, lying on the gift I gave as the restless fragrant cedars
move, the restless winds, winds from the circling parapet
circling us as I lay there touching and lifting his hair.
With his sovereign hand, he wounded my neck.
And my senses, when they touched that, touched nothing.
In a dark night, there where I lost myself
as I leaned to rest in his smooth white breast,
everything ceased and left me forgotten
in the grave of forgotten lilies."