J’ai été vraiment heureux ce matin à l’aéroport de Porto; j’attendais à la porte numéro 11 le retour au Royaume Uni lorsque j’ai visité WordPress pour lire les nouvelles publications et j’ai appris que j’avais eu une dexième mention au concours de poésie dans le blog de Cristophe Condello.
This morning I have been really happy at Porto airport; when I was waiting at gate 11 for the return to UK, I saw in WordPress I got a second mention in the Cristophe Condello poetry contest, held in his blog.
Esta mañá no aeroporto do Porto, mentres agardaba a volta ao Reino Unido na porta de embarque número 11, entrei en WordPress para ler as novas publicacións dos blogs que sigo e tiven unha moi agradable sorpresa, no concurso de poesía de Cristophe Condello obtiven unha segunda mención.
Pola cámara vexo que te levantas e botas un pau máis na cociña de leña do noso fogar na tormenta volves á mesa e o son do lume envolvendo a madeira ponlle música de fondo á nosa conversa os estralidos van gañando espazo e envolvendo as palabras que pasan a desaparecer tragadas tamén polas chamas
Paseniñamente, retrocedo máis de corenta anos ata o momento no que as herbeiras e os montes eran o noso terreo de xogo e durante as grandes aventuras que alí corriamos con aquel degoiro no peito por descubrir todo o fantástico que a natureza acubillaba os pes ían enchoupándose de orballo e as mans entumecéndose pola xiada ao finalizar a expedición, ou ao aproximarse a hora da comida, o que primeiro chegase, volviamos á casa vella centro do noso universo infantil recibidos pola calor e o arrecendo doce da pota co leite das vacas a ferver; sentabámonos no banco corrido atrás da cociña de leña, o corazón da casa, o lugar máis confortable da Terra e cunha culler recolliamos a tona do leite nunha rebanada do molete empoada logo con azúcre era o mellor postre que se puider imaxinar
O noso fogar hoxe ten tamén un corazón quente onde sentirse protexido e querido mesmo no medio da treboada. O amor que se aprende de pequeno non se esquece máis.
The wood burning cooker
By the camera I see you get up and throw another log in the wood burning cooker of our home in the storm you come back to the table and the sound of the fire enveloping the wood puts background music to our conversation the crackles are gaining space and enveloping the words that are disappearing also swallowed by the flames
Slowly, I go back more than forty years to the time when grasslands and hills were our playground and during the great adventures we ran there with that thirst in our chests for discovering all the fantastic that nature sheltered our feet were soaked with dew and our hands were numb from the frost at the end of the expedition or when it was time for lunch, whichever came first, we returned to the old house in the center of our children's universe, greeted by the sweet smell of the pot with boiling cow's milk; we sat on the long bench behind the wood stove, for us the heart of the house and the center of the world with a spoon we collected the milk skin in a slice of galician country loaf - then sprinkled with sugar was the best dessert imaginable
Our home also has a warm heart today where you can feel protected and loved even in the middle of a tempest. The love you learn as a child is never forgotten.
Coas últimas apertas tento conxelar o tempo, tapar o burato por onde abrollará a cachón a tristura.
Pasamos sobre Rande despedíndome tamén da ría, ese mar recollido onde pacen rabaños de bateas. Adeus mexillóns, adeus aos oligoelementos!
Coas últimas apertas tento cargar as reservas de cariño a rebordar, para cando veña a triste soidade poder pasarlle a língua á superficie doce dos recordos e tirar as vitaminas que tornen a enfermidade como se torna unha vaca das coles.
Dígolle adeus, xa dende a ventá do avión á cidade de edificios apertados acaroada ao mar, adeus aos verdes montes salpicados de casiñas, e á fin no interior, adeus á luz e ao aire do xardín que trouxeron un adianto da primavera, adeus logo ás primeiras flores da ameixeira.
Adeus sobre todo aos teus abrazos, porta doutra dimensión onde o espazo non permita viaxar e o tempo nunca se esgote para estarmos así xuntos por sempre.
The last hugs
With the last hugs I try to freeze time, cover the hole where sadness will spring up.
We passed over Rande bridge, also saying goodbye to the estuary, that secluded sea where herds of rafts graze. Goodbye mussels, goodbye to the trace elements!
With the last hugs I try to fill the reserves of affection to overflow, so that when the sad loneliness comes I can pass my tongue to the sweet surface of memories to extract the vitamins that drive away the disease as the farmer shoos away the naughty cow that eats his cabbages.
I say goodbye, already from the plane window, to the city of tight buildings facing the sea, goodbye to the green hills dotted with houses, and eventually inside, goodbye to the light and air of the garden that brought a preview of spring, goodbye to the first plum blossoms.
And goodbye mainly to your hugs, door to another dimension where space does not allow travel and time never runs out to allow us to be together forever.
Chega a enfermidade sempre no momento inoportuno, non molestan tanto as dores que me trae como a desorganización que me deixa.
E a doenza non viu antes porque estaba tan atarefado eu que non topou unha fenda no meu horario por onde coarse.
Teño tantas tarefas pendentes, que continuaría correndo trala morte, de feito ás veces penso se sigo aínda vivo ou xa estou únicamente imaxinando unha vida e o meu corpo xace inerte nalgures.
Illness
Illness always comes at the wrong time and it is not as much the pain that it brings as the disorganization it leaves me with.
And the disease did not arrive before because I was so busy that it did not find a hole in my agenda to sneak.
I have so many pending tasks that I would continue to run after death, in fact sometimes I wonder if I’m still alive or I’m just imagining a life and my body lies inert somewhere.
Á ameixeira os anos trouxéronlle amáis de liques e musgos para abrigar as pólas, o poder de ler os soños e pesadelos femininos.
Aínda que xa é unha árbore vella, tivo coma min a sorte de coñecer únicamente as dores da paz. Ela non nacera aínda cando a señora da casa era só unha meniña de nove anos asustada mentres as balas batían contra a fachada.
Esta é a casa das mulleres, anque hoxe só queda en ela a derradeira da liñaxe, e a eira arredor encheuse de recunchos baleiros onde as follas de carballo xogan á roda, cóllense da man do vento e perséguense unhas ás outras cun louco frenesí, como nenas no pátio da escola.
A ameixeira ergueuse en protectora da casa, por se un día volveran os disparos, parar coas suas pólas vestidas de musgo os proxectiles antes de que puidesen volver bater contra o marco da ventá e asustar as nenas indefensas.
Comecei a podala o inverno pasado, convertinme así no humilde servidor do Vixía no Centeo.
A casa tiña postos que cubrir e eu fun o escollido.
The Women’s house
In addition to lichens and mosses to cover the branches, the years have brought the plum tree the power to read women’s dreams and nightmares.
Although it is already an old tree, it was as lucky as me to know only the pains of peace. It hadn’t been born yet when the lady of the house was just a nine-year-old girl scared as bullets hit the façade.
This is the house of the women, although today only the last of the lineage remains in it, and the threshing floor around it is filled with empty corners where the oak leaves play Ring a Ring o’ Roses, while holding on to the hand of the wind and they chase each other with a mad frenzy, like girls in the school yard.
The plum tree established itself as the protector of the house, in case one day the shots came back, it would stop the projectiles with their moss-covered branches before they could hit the window frame again and scare the helpless girls.
I started pruning it last winter, so I became the humble servant of the Catcher in the Rye.
The house had posts to fill and I was the chosen one.
Vivo rodeado das latas de atún que foron nun día efímero alimento e non podo mover un só músculo sen provocar un caótico cacharreo meu corpo paseniñamente volveuse ríxido e liso lombo de peixe mariño Flexibel espiña de bonito enlatado! Mundo de pau que parte e estala! Busco en ámazon polo i de imán como no meu dicionario de neno sigo coa dereitura dos mastros que aprendín a imitar no colexio E xa só ese son metálico disonante das latas a baterse entre elas e o cheiro dos restos de aceite rancio me envolven nunha familiaridade tépeda conseguindo así agachar a superficie áspera desta soidade do inadaptado á procura dun imán que sen esforzo limpe os cascallos do pasado
Internal landscape with tuna
I live surrounded by cans of tuna which one day were ephemeral food and I can't move a single muscle without causing a chaotic mess my body slowly became a rigid and smooth marine fish back Flexibel fishbone of canned bonito! world of dry twigs that breaks and bursts! In amazon, I go to m looking for a magnet as in my childhood dictionary I continue with the straightness of the masts which I learned to imitate at school And now only that dissonant metallic sound of the cans beating each other and the smell of the remnants of rancid oil they envelop me in a tepid familiarity hiding the rough surface of maladjusted's loneliness looking for a magnet that effortlessly clean up the rubble of the past
vese o home dende arriba como filmado cun dron dende o alto vese que camiña manténdose entre as duas liñas amarelas no carreiro que ten un moneco amarelo pintado esfórzase por non pisar ningunha das duas liñas e case sempre o consegue
O paxaro está atordado e voa e bate coas paredes non consegue sair a campo aberto nin sequera soña que veña unha man quente mostrarlle o camiño de saída abrirlle a ventá e liberalo das paredes deste cuarto Pero non morre, desnortado quedará no chan recuperándose acabará á fin por topar a saída
Séguese vendo o home dende arriba cínguese aos espazos delimitados, ás raias dos pasos de cebra, ás luces verdes dos semáforos.
E así a todo as colleitas son sempre fracas as árbores sécanlle na horta o escarabello venlle estragar o cultivo
O home non entende pensou que manténdose dereito a vida traeríalle canto precisara. Mais agora xa non ten folgos para botar o pe fóra do límite arriscándose ao mundo prohibido, e lograr escapar destes grillóns moldearonllos na zafra a medida e non hai ferreiro que os saque
paths of men and birds
the man is seen from above as filmed with a drone placed on him it is seen he walks keeping between the two yellow stripes on the path with the walking person symbol in yellow he tries hard not to step on any stripes and he almost always gets it
The bird is stunned and flies and hits the walls can't get out in the open it doesn’t even dream of a warm hand coming to show the way out to open the window and release it from the walls of this room. But it does not die, it will be left on the ground disoriented recovering and eventually end up bumping into the exit
The man is still seen from above confines to delimited spaces, to the stripes of the zebra crossings, to the green lights of the traffic lights
And so the crops are always weak the trees dry up in the orchard beetles come to spoil the plants
The man does not understand he thought while standing up straight life would bring him what he needed. But now he has no longer strength to put his feet out of bounds to risk the forbidden world, and manage to escape from these shackles custom molded in the forge there is no blacksmith to take them out
Los ojos del soldado vuelven enfermos de sombra sus huesos han guardado el hielo de los montes su espalda por siempre ya solo el dolor nombra los dedos contraídos se han tornado torpes
Su mente fue un arroyo rodando falda abajo los cantos blancos del cauce las flores de la orilla presagiaban el valle caudaloso y manso no se imaginaba entrando en la guerrilla
Dejó el taller, la novia y el equipo de fútbol toda el agua salvaje corre ya entubada lucha, dolor, soledad, exilio, prisión, disgusto se suceden en tromba años lejos de casa
Cuando por fin retorna es ya un perro enfermo y viejo y sin brillo y como una astilla molesta y revive lo que queremos muerto como el bocinazo de una caracola que no agrada oír se le va apartando ni estatuas, ni heroe ni campo de amapolas
La derrota última es la vuelta al país desearía haber muerto de una bala cuando aún podía disparar
The soldier
The soldier's eyes come back sick of shade his bones have kept the ice of the mountains his back forever only names the pain the fingers contracted and he has become clumsy
His mind was a stream rolling hillside down the white stones of the riverbed the flowers of the river bank foreshadowed the valley mighty and meek he did not imagine entering the guerrilla
He left the workshop, the girlfriend and the football team all wild water run already piped fight, pain, loneliness, exile, prison, disappointment years away from home happened in a rush
When he finally returns he is already a sick dog and old and dull and like a splinter annoys and revives what we want dead like the honk of a conch unpleasant to be heard they are moving him away no statues, no hero no poppy field
The ultimate defeat it is the return to the country he wish he had been killed by a bullet when he could still shoot
abel abilheira 