“Caminante, no hay camino/ Traveler, there is no road…”

I first heard Antanio Machado’s poem in Spanish, on the lips of a woman I loved. We were driving to her place in Combate, Puerto Rico. It was dark & the road was dirt, full of deep but imperceptible potholes. Also her laughter.

Her recitation allowed me to hear the music first, recognizing a word here & there: caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más;/caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Her recitation was also generous— repeating lines, slowly translating words again & again but in pockets so they weren’t disconnected from the music or the road or her laughter— Traveler, your footprints are the road, nothing else./ Traveler, there is no road; you make your own path as you walk. This iterative generosity allowed me walk the poem, not just read it. Or to put it another way— a supplied form of meaning (translation) was replaced by a more interesting & felt coherence that required both music & incoherence, & something else besides.

Al andar se hace el camino, /y al volver la vista atrás/se ve senda que nunca/ se ha de volver a pisar.

This walking/listening also kept me from paying too much attention to how many times we almost landed dangerously in a ditch— a persistent reality, which she met laughing.

As you walk, you make your own road,/ and when you look back/ you see the path/ you will never travel again.

Caminante, no hay camino/sino estelas en la mar.

Traveler, there is no road;/ only a ship’s wake on the sea.