Kukua

Apirilaren hasieran entzun zuen aurrena kukua.
Urduri zebilelako beharbada,
kaosa ordenatzeko joera horrengatik beharbada,
kukuak zein notatan kantatzen zuen jakin nahi izan zuen.

Hurrengo arratsaldean, hantxe egon zen basoan zain,
diapasoia eskuan, kukuak noiz kantatuko.
Diapasoiak ez zioen gezurrik.
Si-sol ziren kukuaren notak.

Aurkikuntzak bazterrak astindu zituen.
Mundu guztiak frogatu nahi zuen benetan
nota horietan kantatzen ote zuen kukuak.
Baina neurketak ez zetozen bat.
Bakoitzak bere egia zuen.
Fa-re zirela zioen batek, Mi-do besteak.
Ez ziren ados jartzen.

Bitartean, kukuak kantari jarraitzen zuen basoan:
ez si-sol, ez fa-re, mi-do ezta ere.
Mila urte lehenago bezala,
kukuak kuku, kuku kantatzen zuen.

© Kirmen Uribe
De: Zaharregia, txikiegia agian
Soraluze: Gaztelupeko hotsak, 2003
ISBN: Gaztelupeko hotsak
Producción de Audio: 2005, M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

The cuckoo

He heard the first cuckoo at the beginning of April.
Because he’d been feeling on edge, maybe,
from an inclination to order the chaos, maybe,
he wanted to know which notes the cuckoo sang.

He sat waiting with his pitch pipe
next afternoon: When
would the cuckoo sing?
He finally achieved it:
The pitch pipe told no lies.
Si-sol were the cuckoo’s notes.

The discovery shook the countryside.
Everyone wanted to prove whether truly those
were the notes that the cuckoo sang.
The measurements were not in harmony.
Each had his or her own truth.
One said it was fa-re, another mi-do.
No one managed to agree.

Meanwhile the cuckoo went on singing in the forest,
not mi-do, not fa-re, not si-sol, either.
As it had a thousand years before,
the cuckoo sang cuccu, cuccu.

Translated from the Basque by Elizabeth Macklin