O chan

María do Cebreiro

Hai anos, entre os muiños, dixéronnos

que o barco naufragara, e ti viñeches

onda min e despois escribiches

que eu ía vestida de inverno, «da cor

da terra» (cito de memoria, non conservo

esa carta) e que niso atoparas algo así

como unha premonición. Desfíxenme

da roupa que levaba esa noite

e xa non teño nin o xersei nin a saia

que, en efecto, eran da cor da terra.

E volvín preguntarme por que unha prenda

da cor da terra podía parecerche,

mentres camiñabamos sobre a auga,

unha premonición, e quixen saber que for a

exactamente aquilo que a miña roupa

che anunciara. Agora, no territorio do soño,

collo da man o home que a miña imaxinación

escolle por amante e entramos no bosque.

(A cada bosque, o seu carácter). Temos follas

nos petos e nos ollos, os pés de un enredados

nos pés do outro. Non é que no bosque

haxa árbores, é que as árbores (neste soño,

carballos) son o bosque mesmo, e estamos

tan enredados que nin sequera reparamos

nas picaduras dos mosquitos. Dámonos

bicos en todas as partes do corpo, mesmo

naquelas que non foron pensadas

para bicar (por exempla, nas cellas).

Cabemos un dentro da voz do outro.

Espertamos co canto dos primeiros paxaros

e temos terra ata nas pernas, no ventre,

no interior dos xeonllos. Sempre pensei

que eu era unha muller de vento e de auga

ata que reparei, rentes do chan, en que a terra

tamén tiña túneles e pregos, en que nela

había tamén humidade e aire. Pero non vin

na terra un espello do mar nin amei dela

nada que non tivese a súa propia forma.

 

The Ground

translated by Jacob Rogers

Years ago, by the mills, they told us

that the ship had sunk, and you came

to me and later wrote that

I was dressed for winter, “in the color

of the earth” (I’m quoting from memory,

I don’t have the letter) and that you saw

in it something like a premonition. I removed

the clothes I was wearing that night

and no longer have either the sweater or the skirt

which were, in effect, the color of the earth.

And I once again asked myself why the color

of the earth would strike you, while we

walked by the water,

as a premonition, and I wanted to know what

exactly it was about my clothes

that called out to you. Now, in the land of dreams,

I take the hand of the man my mind chooses

as a lover and we enter the forest together.

(To each forest its own character.) We have leaves

in our pockets and eyes, our feet are tangled

up in one another’s. It’s not that there are no trees

in the forest, it’s that the trees (oaks, in this

dream) are the forest itself, and we’re so

entangled that we don’t even feel the

mosquito bites. We kiss each other

all over, even on the parts of

our bodies that weren’t made to be

kissed (the eyebrows, for instance).

We each fit into one another’s voice.

We wake to the song of the first birds

and have dirt on our legs, our stomachs,

the insides of our knees. I had always thought that

I was a woman of wind and water until

I looked down at the ground and saw that

the dirt had tunnels and folds as well, that there

was wetness and air within it, too. But I did not

see in the earth a reflection of the sea, nor did I love

anything in it that did not have its own shape.

 

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