Gabriel Ferrater

Among the objects of the world, among the few
objects I have clung to, there is a paperknife:
a short ivory blade,
naked to my hand, which turns brown or pale
according to the light of days and places.
After twenty years I come across it in my pocket
and don’t remember who it was who gave me it.
Its edge is jagged: many a time I’ve picked it
off the floor in some room of mine or between feet
after paying for a night in a bar.
It has cut thousands of pages: memories, lies
of other men (though hardly any women).
And I don’t remember who it was who gave me it.
I cannot fabricate another memory, someone’s hand.

Puc repetir la frase que s’ha endut
el teu record. No sé res més de tu.
Aquesta insistent aigua de paraules,
sempre creixent, va ensulsiant els marges
de la vida que vaig creure real.
La terra pedregosa i fatigosa
de caminar, i els arbres que em ferien
els ulls amb una branca delicada,
tan vivament maligna, convincent
amb la prova millor, la de les llàgrimes,
sembla que no són res. Es van donant
a l’amplaria grisa, jaspiada
d’esperma pal. líd, embafós. Tot cau
amb una fressa lenta i molla, i flota
sense figura, 0 s’esfonsa per sempre.
Tot fa sentit, només sentit, tot és
tal com ho he dit. Ja no sé res de tu.

I can repeat the phrase which has carried off
your memory. That’s all I know of you.
This insistent stress of words,
continually rising, is dirtying the banks
of the life I thought was real.
The tedious, stony earth on which
I walk, and the trees which strike
my eyes with a delicate branch,
so vividly malign, convincing
with the best of evidence, with tears,
it seems that they are nothing. They give themselves
to the grey expanse, streaked
with pale, sickening sperm, and float
without image, or sink forever.
Everything makes sense, but only sense, everything
is as I have said. Now I know nothing of you.

Dos reactors corquen el cel. S’enfilen
fins a injectar l’agulla de polsim
al cor de vast oblit solar. Arran
de terra, el món amaga que també
li fuig el seny, gira amb lenta astúcia
imperiosa: tota vertical
se’ns decanta, llisquem cap a les a vores
del viure que demà ens hi trobarem
al mig. Avui diumenge. Els ametllers
riuen de veure’s, nus encara, en l’aigua
dels rierols que fan les seves ombres
precipitades rasa avall. A punt,
tot és a punt, i res no té sencera
la seva primavera. Tot és més
persuasiu així, prim i translúcid.
Com que ens ho creiem tot, ens sentim rics.
Feliços de gustar tots un sol gust,
ens sembla que tastem futur. Partim-nos
els dies que vindran per tots nosltres,
com els grillons d’una taronja. Té-

Two jet planes tunnel through the sky. They climb,
injecting their vapour needles into the heart
of the sun’s immense oblivion. Down below,
the world conceals the fact it too is going
mad, and turns with the gradual cunning
of authority. Our verticals all tilt,
we slide towards the edges of the life
within whose centre we shall stand tomorrow.
Today is Sunday, and the almond trees
rejoice to see themselves, still naked, in
the water of the streams their shadows make,
cascading down the hillside. Everything
is ripe, yes, ripe, and nothing has its spring
entire. Just for the moment, everything
is more persuasive, slender and translucent.
Since we believe it all, we feel well-off.
Happy to share a universal flavour,
we seem to taste the future. Let us divide
the days which lie in store for all of us,
like the segments of an orange. Here…

Alguna cosa ha entrat
dins algun vers que sé
que podré escriure, no
sé quan, ni com, ni què
s’avindrà a dir. Si puc
te’l duré cap a tu.
Que digui els teus cabells
0 l’escata de sol
que et vibra en aquesta ungla.
Però potser no sempre
tindré del tot present
el que ara veig en tu.
He sentit el SO fosc
d’una cosa que em cau
dins algun pou. Quan suri,
he de saber conèixer
que ve d’aquest moment?

Something has entered
some verse I know
I’ll be able to write, and
I don’t know when, nor how, nor what
it will come to say. If I can,
I shall bring it to you.
May it tell of your hair
or the sliver of sun
which vibrates on your fingernail.
But perhaps what I see in you now
won’t always be fully present.
I have heard the dark sound
of something falling
into some well. When it emerges,
shall I be able to know
it comes from this moment?

Mitjanit del solstici. Com la neu
(no ens ha caigut enguany), damunt la pedra
que encaua el jaç del nostre milió,
s’afeixuga el silenci violent
dels cels que van girant-se vers nosaltres
com una cara, i amb lenta clemència
que el neguit nostre no sabrà torbar,
comença a obrir-se l’ull que ens forma, l’ull
de la llum nova.
Déus de la promesa,
aquest estiu me’l crec, que em feu vinent.
Ara tinc lluny la cara on reposo
la meva millor fe, i vull recordar-me
de vosaltres. M’avinc a suplicar-vos,
per ara tot moment en què, com ara,
la dolça cara em sigui lluny, que es giri
em torni, com un fruit al meu abast.

Midnight at the solstice. Like snow
(this year we had none) falling on the stone
that locks away our hoarded millions,
the violent stillness of the skies
which slowly turns towards us like a face
grows heavier and, with a gradual clemency
no fear of ours can shake,
the eye which forms us starts to come awake, the eye
of the new light.
Gods of promise!
I believe the summer you are bringing me.
Now that the face on which I set
my brightest hopes is miles away, I come to beg
that now or whenever, at such times,
the face I love is absent, it may turn
and come back, like a fruit my hand can reach.

Molt abans que te’ls tornis vella i grisa,
l’ombra del núvol meu damunt l’estesa
de natura i conreu: la teva terra,
com un floc lleu de cendra, imperceptible
per tots ells, però encara no per tu,
quan se l’endugui un últim pal.lid vent
s’arrissarà convulsa per 1′ adéu,
• P et deixarà el record d’un fred caduc.
Sé com, després, se’ls obriran les vies
del sol, quan, dins la múltiple sorpresa
de fulles nobles, els fibli l’orella
1’àgil flauta infernal del teu migdia.
Ho sé jo, que ara emboiro el teu profund
crepuscle matinal. Tot desesper
d’alçar-me, m’emparraco en esbarzers
i omplo de plor correcs d’incertitud.

Long before to them you are old and grey,
the shadow of my cloud upon the expanse
of heath and fields of crops – your own domain-
a like a thin layer of ash, invisible
to all the rest, though not as yet to you:
its shape will curl and shudder in farewell
and leave you to recall an ancient chill.
I know how, then, the sun’s wide avenues
will stretch before them, when, in the manifold
surprise of noble leaves, their ears are pierced
by the deft, infernal flute of your high noon.
I know it, now my mist obscures the depths
of your first early morning light. All hope
of rising gone, I tear myself on briars
and fill with tears the rain-scored slopes of doubt.

Un sol fil et daura
la fosca memoria,
corre pels tapissos
on t’has figurat.
Tornes, tornes tu?
No trepitges fort,
i et fas sofrir els ulls
a seguir la trama
pels vells corredors.
Salves esvorancs
de por successiva,
només que et llampeguin
lluïssors de fe.
que, una mica identic,
algú que et pots dir
que és tu mateix, sempre
fa cami amb tu.
No retrobaràs
la teva ombra espessa,
el dúctil propòsit
amb què saps trair,
fins que surtis on,
a la llum del sol
(“quina? quina?” et crida
la gralla) plegades,
t’esperen les dones.

A single thread gilds
your dark memory,
runs through the tapestries
in which you have figured.
Do you return?
Tread lightly,
and you will suffer your eyes
to follow the pattern
down the ancient corridors.
You travel through gaps
of successive fear,
if only there flicker
images of faith
that, somehow identical,
someone you could say
was yourself, continually
walks beside you.
You will not recover
the density of your shadow,
the fluid purpose
with which you betray,
until you emerge where,
in the light of the sun
(“which one? which one?” calls
the crow) gathered together,
the women await you.

Aleshores, quan jèiem
abraçats davant la finestra
oberta al pendís d’oliveres (dues
llavors nues dins un fruit que l’estiu
ha badat violent, que s’omple
d’aire) no teníem records. Érem
el record que tenim ara. Érem
aquesta imatge. Els ídols de nosaltres,
per la submisa fe de després.

Then, when we lay
in one another’s arms before the window
open to the olive slope (two
naked seeds inside a fruit which summer
has flung open, and which fills
with air) we had no memories. We were
the memory we have now. Idols of ourselves,
for the submissive faith of afterwards.

Gener benigne. Sota
molt d’aire verd, les coses
avui no es fan esquerpes
ni el lloc és drid. Mira:
tres llimones, posades
a l’aspre de la llosa.
Perquè es mullen de sol
i pots considerar
sense dubte ni pressa
la mètrica senzilla
que les enllaça, et penses
que signifiquen res?
Mira, i ja han estat prou
per tu.
Cor seduit,
renuncia des d’ara
calla. No faràs teu
el joc de tres llimones
a l’aspre d’una llosa.
Ni sabràs aixecar
protesta abans de perdre’l.
Cap surt de la memòria
no abolirà la plàcida
manera de morir-se
que tenen els records.

Mild January. Beneath
the plentiful green air, things
today have lost their awkwardness,
nor is the place arid. Look:
three lemons, set
on the roughness of a slab.
Because they are soaked in sun
and you can consider
with neither doubt nor haste
the metrical simplicity
which links them each to each,
do you believe they mean something?
Ravished heart,
renounce from now on,
be silent. You will not assimilate
the meeting of three lemons
on the roughness of a slab.
And you will make no protest
before you lose it.
No leap of recollection
will abolish the peaceful
way of dying
that memories have.

Ella dorm. L’hora que els homes
ja s’han despertat, i poca llum
entra encara a ferir-los.
Amb ben poc en tenim prou. Només
el sentiment de dues coses:
la terra gira, i les dones dormen.
Conciliats, fem via
cap a la fi del món. No ens cal
fer res per ajudar-lo.

She is asleep. At this hour
men are already awake, though as yet
only a little light strikes in to them.
A little suffices: the awareness
merely, of two things:
the earth revolves, and women sleep.
Assenting, we travel on
to the end of the world. We need
do nothing to assist it.

Ho diré a l’inrevés. Diré la pluja
frenètica d’agost, els peus d’un noi
caragolats al fil del trampolí,
1’agut salt de llebre que fa l’aroma
dels lilàs a l’abril, la pacièncía
de l’aranya que escriu la seva fam,
el cos amb quatre cames i dos caps
en un solar gris de crepuscle, el peix
llisquent com un arc de violí,
el blau i or de les nenes en bici,
la set dramàtica del gos, el tall
dels fars de camió en la matinada
pútrida del mercat, els braços fins.
Diré el que em fuig. No diré res de mi.

I shall say it in reverse. I shall say
the frantic August rain, a boy’s feet
curled at the edge of the springboard,
the sharp greyhound leap of the scent
of lilacs in April, the patience
of the spider inscribing its hunger,
the body with four legs and two heads
on a farmstead grey with dusk, the fish
sliding like a violin a bow,
the blue and gold of girls on bikes,
the dog’s dramatic thirst, the thrust
of truck headlights through the market’s
fetid dawn, the slender arms.
I shall say what escapes me. I shall say nothing of myself.