The Natural Laws of Good Luck

Tiny Bubbles: Slippery Luck

I found this reference to translations of Antonio Machado’s poems by Robert Bly in Ellen Graf’s memoir The Natural Laws of Good Luck: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage.

Soap bubbles are transitory and fleeting like all human life; Treading softly on humble ground goes Machado. This encourages me to consume more of his blue skies and memory lanes.

I have never wanted fame
Nor wanted to leave my poems
Behind in the memory of men
I love the subtle worlds,
Delicate, almost without weight,
Like soap bubbles.
I enjoy seeing them take the color
Of sunlight and scarlet, float
In the blue sky, then
Suddenly quiver and break.