Recently at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston we’ve started doing a bilingual reading once a month. It is part of a larger project of using more Spanish in the service. We have a small community in the congregation who are native speakers and Houston has a very large population of who speaks primarily Spanish. Our small effort is an attempt to be a bit more welcoming and inclusive. For our October 20, 2019 we used “Dice Que No Sabe Del Miedo…” by Alejandra Pizarnik. There wasn’t an English version available so I did my own translation. Here it is (the orginal version is below for reference):
She Says That She Doesn’t Know Fear…
by Alejandra Pizarnik
She says that she doesn’t know the fear of the death of love
She says she does not have fear of the death of love
She says that love is death is fear
She says that death is fear is love
She says that she doesn’t know
Dice Que No Sabe Del Miedo…
por Alejandra Pizarnik
dice que no sabe del miedo de la muerte del amor
dice que no tiene miedo de la muerte del amor
dice que el amor es muerte es miedo
dice que la muerte es miedo es amor
dice que no sabe
