Online Sheli Poetry Translation

I completed a new page on my website awhile back, and,
after a successful test run, I'm going to announce it here.

Basically, I wrote a poem in Sheli, and I've put resources
online for anyone to translate it.  I've attempted two
translations, and a friend of mine has done two, as well.
The page is here:

http://dedalvs.free.fr/sheli/poetry.html

The point of the page is not so much the poem, as the
translation.  I've never been good at writing poetry,
so I was amazed that I was actually able to fit one
together.  The point is to see how different people
translate it.  The idea is based on a book by Eliot
Weinberger called Nineteen Ways of Looking at
Wang Wei.  Here's an Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0918825148/104-0791613
-1996740?v=glance

The point of the book is to show nineteen different
translations of a single four line poem by Wang Wei.
They're all very different, and each conveys a unique
image (though some very, very poorly).  I thought it
would be a neat experiment to try to replicate what
Weinberger did, but with a conlangy twist.

Anyway, I invite anyone to translate the poem.  And,
as I say on the page, it doesn't necessarily need to be
a translation into English (though if it is, I'll probably
need your help in pinning down how your translation
works).  I think it would be especially interesting to
translate the poem into a different language and then
back into English.  It'd be like our translation relays,
except the translator isn't in the dark.

So, that's it.  I look forward to any and all contributions.

-David (who needs a sig!  I'll work on it)

Replies