NEW ITINERARY

 

Fleeting flocks of birds, flaming clouds,

new amblers along the promenade, faint echoes.

All will rise to receive the newcomer

who will bring auguries of the new city.

 

Over time, you do not recognize

those streets at all. The avenue and the quay.

Ignored twilights. Paths of smoke

that wipe out the history or the reminiscences

of bygone years. The theatre and the bakery,

Sant Antoni or Porta del mar…

 

Now, only very tall Cyclops, streams of people,

seize your memory, make you cry.

You warm yourself. A blazing fire and a sip of wine.

Today, now here, you no longer know what to say.

You think of bygone years, you miss parties,

you remember the sad city walls.

Sis bronzes grisos d'alba (Six grey bronzes at dawn), 1986

Translated by Núria Cohen.

(Palma, 1966). Margalida Pons i Jaume is a poet and professor. She graduated in Catalan Studies and has a PhD in Catalan literature and is a senior lecturer for the Department of Catalan Studies and General Linguistics at the UIB (University of the Balearic Islands). Her research on literature has led her to publish studies on Balearic post war poetry, such as Poesia insular de postguerra: quatre veus dels cinquanta (1998), and a book devoted to Blai Bonet under the title Blai Bonet: maneres del color (1993). She is the author of poetry books entitled Sis bronzes grisos d´alba (1985) and Les aus (1988).