Cardos y lluvia - Kate Clanchy

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sólo el lento despertar, la vida renovada de una ciudad

      que me despierta, podría despertarme tan intensamente

      como mayo, pero podría mayo haber despertado

      lo que siento de deseo y fuerza

      como un brazo saludando a un sol?

      Todo enero, todo febrero los patinadores

      disfrutaron la laguna de Bingham, las claras tardes frías,

      se mecían y precipitaban entre las luces de los faros,

      los conductores se estacionaban alrededor de la laguna oscura

      para mirarlos, y darles luz, ¡cuánta risa

      y placer surgía en los raros silencios

      del cercano río de llantas sobre la Gran

       Carretera Occidental!

      El hielo se quebró, pero los barcos salieron.

      Los barcos pintados están listos para el placer.

      La larga luz no necesita faros.

      El remo negro recorta un destello: es el cielo en la tierra.

      ¿Será cierto que nacemos

      no una, sino muchas veces?

      Retrocedemos hacia la imagen

      de la semilla en la oscuridad, o la piel grisácea

      de la serpiente que esconde otra brillante...

      desechará esa materia gastada

      y hasta la película del ojo se desprende...

      Para que el mundo pueda ser igual, y nosotros no

      y así el mundo no es igual,

      el segundo ojo está haciendo de nuevo

      este lugar, estas aguas y estas torres,

      se alzan de nuevo

      cuando el ojo se enfrenta al sol,

      cuando el ojo saluda al sol.

      Hay muchas cosas no dichas

      en la vida de un hombre, y ante un lugar

      hay también un amor no dicho

      en corrientes ocultas, flotando, esperando su momento.

      Un gran lugar y su gente no se renueva con ligereza.

      Una a una las capas de mugre

      se entibian, como abrigos acogedores.

      Sin embargo serán desalojadas

      y los hombres aún estarán tibios.

      Los viejos abrigos se desechan.

      El viejo hielo se afloja.

      Las viejas semillas despiertan.

      Aléjate de la oscuridad, ya es hora.

       Trad. Mónica Mansour

      I

      Sundown on the high stonefields!

      The darkening roofscape stirs –

      thick – alive with starlings

      gathered singing in the square –

      like a shower of arrows they cross

      the flash of a western window,

      they bead the wires with jet,

      they nestle preening by the lamps

      and shine, sidling by the lamps

      and sing, shining, they stir

      the homeward hurrying crowds.

      A man looks up and points

      smiling to his son beside him

      wide-eyed at the clamour on those cliffs –

      it sinks, shrills out in waves,

      levels to a happy murmur,

      scatters in swooping arcs,

      a stab of confused sweetness

      that pierces the boy like a story,

      a story more than a song.

      He will never forget that evening,

      the silhouette of the roofs,

      the starlings by the lamps.

      II

      The City Chambers are hopping mad.

      Councillors with rubber plugs in their ears!

      Secretaries closing windows!

      Window-cleaners want protection and danger money.

      The Lord Provost can’t hear herself think, man.

      What’s that?

      Lord Provost, can’t hear herself think.

      At the General Post Office

      the clerks write Three Pounds Starling in the saving-books.

      Each telephone-booth is like an aviary.

      I tried to send a parcel to County Kerry but –

      The cables to Cairo got fankled, sir.

      What’s that?

      I said the cables to Cairo got fankled.

      And as for the City Information Bureau –

      I’m sorry I can’t quite chirrup did you twit –

      No I wanted to twee but perhaps you can’t cheep –

      Would you try once again, that’s better, I – sweet –

      When’s the last boat to Milngavie? Tweet?

      What’s that?

      I said when’s the last boat to Milngavie?

      III

      There is nothing for it now but scaffolding:

      clamp it together, send for the bird-men,

      Scarecrow Strip for the window-ledge landings,

      Cameron’s Repellent on the overhead wires.

      Armour our pediments against eavesdroppers.

      This is a human oupost. Save our statues.

      Send back the jungle. And think of the joke:

      as it says in the papers, It is very comical

      to watch them alight on the plastic rollers

      and take a tumble. So it doesn’t kill them?

      All right, so who’s complaining? This isn’t Peking

      where they shoot the sparrows for hygiene and cash.

      So we’re all humanitarians, locked in our cliff-dwellings

      encased in our repellent, guano-free and guilt-free.

      The Lord Provost sings in her marble hacienda.

      The Postmaster-General licks an audible stamp.

      Sir Walter is vexed that his column’s deserted.

      I wonder if we really deserve starlings?

      There is something to be said for these joyous messengers

      that we repel in our indignant orderliness.

      They lift up the eyes, they lighten the heart,

      and some day we’ll decipher that sweet frenzied whistling

      as they wheel and settle along our hard roofs

      and take those grey buttresses for home.

      One thing we know they say, after their fashion.

      They like the warm cliffs of man.

      I

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