Ana Hudson

inglés

* * * [Na ude razdalj]

Na ude razdalj nasnuti kosmi
zime. belo okostje časa in prostora,
ki šklepeta od mraza, od neskončnosti,
v dvoje. kakšna samota v sklenjenem

objemu. in koliko bližine z molkom
na ustih zakopane vanj.
kdaj se oglasi, ki počiva z licem
na ramenu golega življenja.

drug k drugemu prižeta, z leti
razmaknjena, telo k telesu,
oklepava med nama vsak svoj več
od sebe.

trenutek, ki okrog njega kroži
čas pozabe, je brezdanji in za zmerom.
ozri se, s profilom globoko vtisnjena
v spomin, Evridika. naj grem,

do koder sega čas v prostoru,
korak korakov, svojo pot v celec,
kjer ni nikogar, k tebi, brez sledov
za sabo.

© Niko Grafenauer
De: Odtisi
Ljubljana : Nova revija, 1999
Producción de Audio: Študentska založba

STATUE OF LIBERTY

And there she was – we, crossing through joy
by boat: father still in a moustache, brown hat,
mother wearing glasses and a scarf, Marta, who’d soon be a mother
but didn’t yet know she was stowing away another passenger in her uterus,
Miguel, small and brave, always trying not to feel his feet hurting
from so many Avenues, and João Pedro, so newly-married, so newly-happy,
so almost a father without knowing it;
we, in the sun, our back to her, facing each other, sensing
New York would only matter because we’d been there together,
and in years to come only this would matter, only this:
having all been there, oblivious, settled in, comfortable
in our own hearts.

And suddenly there she was imitating the hills, an inscrutable green,
there she was mimicking defeated men, heavy, spikes on her head,
arm stretched out attempting to light, a book hanging,
there she was serious, mute, still,
all made of suspended fright, as if playing charades,
as if she would soon trick us, shout out,
her pose undone, her mouth open, laughing loudly ready to have fun,
free from the curiosity of those holding cameras as if seeing her
still and helpless were a spectacle worth registering.

We, arriving on the island, landing out of our absent-mindedness,
we, in our family size, holding our heads high in the unreachable shade,
we, laughing at the people we discovered in her head,
literally at the balcony of her head, those punters,
ignorant that a future September day would inhibit this ascent into heaven.

And there she was, full of herself, refusing to play host:

a tall, offended
statue
in need of a clean-up.

© Translated by Ana Hudson, 2011

first on: www.poemsfromtheportuguese.org