My favourite poem

Cambra de la tardor La persiana, no del tot tancada, com un esglai que es reté de caure a terra, no ens separa de l’aire. Mira, s’obren trenta-set horitzons rectes i prims, però el cor els oblida. Sense enyor se’ns va morint la llum, que era color de mel, i ara és color d’olor de poma. Que lent el món, que lent el món, que lenta la pena per les hores que se’n van de pressa. Digues, te’n recordaràs d’aquesta cambra? «Me l’estimo molt. Aquelles veus d’obrers ― Què són?» Paletes: manca una casa a la mançana. «Canten, i avui no els sento. Criden, riuen, i avui que callen em fa estrany». Que lentes les fulles roges de les veus, que incertes quan vénen a colgar-nos. Adormides, les fulles dels meus besos van colgant els recers del teu cos, i mentre oblides les fulles altes de l’estiu, els dies oberts i sense besos, ben al fons el cos recorda: encara tens la pell mig del sol, mig de la lluna.

-Gabriel Ferrater

An autumnal alcove

The blind, not fully drawn, like

a sudden shock keeping itself from downfall,

does not separate us from the air. Look there,

thirty-seven cracks, like horizons straight and fine,

and yet the heart does not heed them. Without yearning

the light dies on us, the color of honey

it was, and now its color is that of an apple’s scent.

O how slow the world, how very slow, how slow

the sorrow for the hours passing

so fast. Tell me, will you remember

this room?

“I like it so much.

Those workers’ voices, what are they?”

Masons, laborers indeed they are:

a house is missing in the block.

“They sing,

and I can’t hear them today. They shout and laugh,

and their silence today is odd to me.”

How slow,

the red leaves of voices, how uncertain

when they come intent on hanging from us. Asleep,

the leaves of my kisses hang

from the recesses of your body, and while you forget

the high leaves of the summer, the open

days shorn of kisses, deep within

the body reminisces: you still

have the skin halfway between the sun and the moon.

-Gabriel Ferrater