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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