Jan Suadek, The Slavic Girl with Her Father (1998).
Que jo no sigui més com un ocell tot sol,
ales esteses sobre un gran riu
per on davallen lentes barques de gent que riu
a l’ombra baixa del tenderol,
i el rai que el muntanyenc mig nu, enyoradís,
mena amb fatiga cap a ciutats
que estrenyen l’aigua lliure entre molls oblidats
d’haver-hi comes verdes amb arbres i ramats
i un cloqueret feliç.
La vida passa, i l’ull no es cansa d’abocar
imatges clares dintre del cor.
… Tot en mi torna somni: nuvolet d’ombra i d’or
que flota i fina lluny de la mà.
Qui endinsa en el seu cor com un minaire avar,
qui de recança ulls clucs es peix,
tenen més que no jo, que estrany a mi mateix
i alt sobre els altres, guaito l’ona incessant com [creix
i minva cap al mar.
¿Quin moviment humà pot encara desfer
l’encant, llançar-me sang i sentits
a la presa, que és nostra, afanyada, entre els [dits,
o al cant, que d’home a home va i ve?
¿O ha d’ésser mon destí el de l’ocell reial
que un tret, per folga, tomba del cel,
i l’aigua indiferent l’endú, vençut rebel,
cobrint-se amb l’ala inútil els ulls buidats [d’anhel,
sense un plany pel seu mal?
Carles Riba (1893-1959), Segon llibre d’Estances (1930).
No more than a bird aloft alone am I,
wings spread over the wide river
where the boats pass slowly full of laughing people
in the soft shade of the awnings,
and a mountaineer, half-naked and nostalgic, wearily
conducts his raft towards the cities
that comb the open water between piers forgetful
of how there once were green hills of trees and sheep
and a happy steeple.
Life passes, and the eye never tires of taking
clear images into the heart.
All in me becomes a dream: a little cloud of shadow and [gold
that floats and dies out far from my hand.
He who dives into his heart like a greedy miner,
or who from sorrow shuts himself up in there like a [fish,
has more than I who, estranged from myself,
high above the others, watches the ceaseless wave as it [grows
and diminishes in the sea.
What human motion has yet to undo
this spell, to throw me with blood and feeling
to the catch, our own, that we earned, between our [fingers,
or to the song, that from man to man comes and [goes?
Or does my destiny have to be that of the regal bird
that in one shot, like a joke, falls from the sky,
carried away by the indifferent water, a defeated rebel,
one useless wing covering his eyes emptied of desire,
without a single complaint for his suffering?
Traducció de Hillary Gardner.
El Sentit de la Paraula 