Excerpt from
El bosque de Birnam / Birnam Wood
by José Manuel Cardona; translated by Hélène Cardona
The human condition, exile, love and death, freedom and fate, renunciation and resignation, the homeland of Ibiza and the diaspora are themes dominating Birnam Wood. A very clear thematic unity is discernible in the work of José Manuel Cardona: an unflinching look at identity through heightened language. These poems form part of a major on-going tradition in Spanish poetry. His work is marked by a predilection for the classical Castilian hendecasyllable as well as free verse, and by a strong interest in social themes.
The book reflects a social conscience and expresses great pain and love, in particular the poet’s love for his native island of Ibiza. It is also filled with literary influences. Its title, El bosque de Birnam, is a metaphor drawn from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Birnam Wood speaks against abuse of power and for overthrowing all illegitimate governments. Lady Macbeth is foretold that she will have cause for worry when the Birnam Wood rises and marches against her, yet she does not heed the warning. Franco’s rise to power after a military coup launched a Civil War against a republic democratically elected in peace. Birnam Wood stands for resistance to illegitimate and illegal regimes.
The poems in El bosque de Birnam, an anthology, are drawn from the collections Poemas a Circe and El Vendimiador, in addition to other poems spanning six decades. Cardona is literary heir to the group Cántico of Córdoba and belongs to the Poets of the Fifties. His major influences are Jorge Manrique, Luis de Góngora, Francisco de Quevedo, Juan de la Cruz, Odysseas Elytis, Giacomo Leopardi, Vicente Aleixandre, Blas de Otero, T.S. Eliot, Machado, Lorca, Cernuda, Hölderlin, Keats, Shelley, Rilke, Whitman, Blake, Nietzsche, and Homer.
Cardona chose not to pursue a political career but had a great desire to live in peace and liberty. He was forced into exile in France and Switzerland and blacklisted. He has said that “one never loses one’s roots, even when living abroad. My real homeland has been Ibiza and I have always maintained bonds with it, like my friendship with the poet Marià Villangómez.” José Manuel Cardona is an “Ibicenco” of the diaspora, yet faithful to the island he kept in his heart, no matter where destiny led him.
— Hélène Cardona
Cimetière de Montrouge
Uno hay que descansa en los vivos
su muerte de ciprés resucitada.
Germina el trigo en sus manos de hierba
porque a manos y a trigos
se volvó.
César de trueno y rabia,
pregonero hermoso de la paz.
Yo revivo tu rostro de pan quemado,
puño sin hiel abierto a la esperanza.
Sobre la torre Eiffel
percibo tu osamenta de dios encadenado,
tu arquitectura ronca
de hombre de pan, de César y Vallejo.
París, 1955
Montrouge Cemetery
There is one who among the living rests,
his death resuscitated by cypresses.
The wheat sprouts in his hand of grasses
because to wheat and hands
he fell.
César of rage and thunder,
town crier
for peace nonpareil.
I relive your bread burnt face,
unscathed fist open to faith.
Over the Eiffel tower
I perceive your chained god bones,
your raucous architecture
of the man of bread, of César y Vallejo.
Paris, 1955
Ibiza
Os voy a decir un nombre como escrito en la cal
por el índice de fuego de un arcángel selvático.
Hay nombres que son el fuego,
como cortados a pico.
Este es el nombre que llevo en las rayas de mis manos,
el nombre que dice una leyenda
y escribe la historia de mis veinticinco años.
Es hermoso nacer como los pájaros
sobre un nido de piedra,
alzar las alas como una antena de luz
sobre la mar amarga,
llevar en las alas escrito
el nombre de la amada.
Pero más hermoso todavía
es ser esta ave rara, esta espada silente
como una lengua de ofidio,
esa hoguera encendida de lava y rocas,
ese nombre alargado en los arroyos,
ese cuerpo esperado en la canícula,
esa voz, esas manos, esa boca,
ese arañazo íntimo de fábulas o cristales.
He aquí por qué soy como soy,
por qué me llamo de esta manera y no de otra,
por qué la tierra me ha hecho prisionero.
Este es el misterio,
un nombre, una palabra, una hoguera,
un poco de geografía.
Estoy atenazado por amor
entre cuatro paredes de cal viva.
Bajo los limoneros,
a la sombra olorosa de los granados,
donde huelen la albahaca y los romeros,
del talle de palmeras como hermosas mujeres.
Ya sabéis el misterio de mi vida,
ese nombre de laca que os descubre
la sed mis salinas.
Ya sabéis ese nombre de tortura,
ese nombre de higuera y de membrillo,
ese oloroso ramo de azahares,
ese velo espumoso de mar embravecida
donde anidan las aves,
esa mujer lasciva de cabellera roja
que ha escrito la leyenda de mis veinticinco años.
Ya no tengo misterio a vuestros ojos.
Soy el hombre de la isla de Ibiza.
Ibiza
I will tell you a name as written in lime
by the fiery index finger of a forest archangel.
There are names that are the fire
as if roughly sewn.
This is the name I bear in the lines of my hands,
the name that tells a legend
and writes the story of my twenty five years.
It is beautiful to be born like birds
on a stone nest,
lift the wings like an antenna of light
over the bitter sea,
carry the name of the beloved
on the wings.
But more beautiful still
is to be this rare bird, this sword silent
like a snake tongue,
this blaze of burning lava and rocks,
this name stretched in the brooks,
this body awaited in the midsummer heat,
this voice, these hands, this mouth,
this innermost scratch of fable and glass.
This is why I am the way I am,
why I am named this way and no other,
why the land has made me prisoner.
This is the mystery,
a name, a word, a blaze,
a little geography.
I am crushed by love
between four walls of live lime.
Under the lemon trees,
in the scented shade of pomegranate trees,
where basil and rosemary exude their aromas,
the figure of palm trees as if beautiful women.
Now you know the mystery of my life,
this lacquer name unearthed for you
by the thirst of my salt works.
Now you know this name of torture,
this name of fig tree and quince,
this fragrant branch of orange blossoms,
this frothy shroud of rough sea
where the birds nest,
this lustful woman with red mane
who wrote the legend of my twenty five years.
Now I have no mystery for you.
I am the man from the island of Ibiza.
© José Manuel Cardona, from Birnam Wood
(El bosque de Birnam, Consell Insular D’Eivissa, 2007)
about the author