| ALBADA AL CAP DE CREUS | DAWN AT CAP DE CREUS |
| Joan Margarit | trans. Anna Crowe (from Catalan) |
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M’has esperat tan trist. Davant les roques púrpura voliors de gavines et vigilen, líriques buscadores de carronyes en la duresa grisa, cap de mort exaltat per la pura llum del mar. Vorejo el mur a plom amb el vertigen, m’aboco al precipici i tu, com sempre, m’ofereixes un verinós i indiferent silenci. He viscut ajornant les amenaces de l’hivern als meus ulls des de l’infant que va trobar als teus peus el gran saló blau fosc del mar més culte. El cap estén damunt del mar igual que un front tota la nostra història. Batut pel vent del nord, he vingut sol per no haver de fingir l’emoció, que fa temps he perdut, per la bellesa. Aquest camí estampat damunt la pedra és l’últim tram del meu recorregut, el que transcorre vorejant l’abisme. |
You have waited for me so sadly. In front of the purple rocks flocks of gulls watch over you, lyric seekers after carrion in the grey hardness, dead man's head raised up by the pure light off the sea. I edge along the wall that drops dizzily down, I look over the precipice and, as always, you offer me a poisonous and indifferent silence. I have lived postponing the threats of winter in my eyes ever since a child, who found at your feet the huge, deep-blue drawing-room of the most learned sea. Like a forehead the cape spreads out over the sea the whole of our history. Buffeted by the north wind, I have come alone so as not to have to pretend to the feeling for beauty that I lost long ago. This path printed on stone is the last stage of my journey, the one that runs along the edge of the abyss. |
Copyright © Joan Margarit 1986-2006: transl. copyright © Anna Crowe 2006;
orig. publ. "Estaciò de França", poesía Hiperiòn 1999; trans. publ. "Tugs in the Fog", Bloodaxe Books 2006.
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