SUNSET BY THE SEA OF VALLDEMOSSA

 

You may evoke the grey hue of the olives

or the bitter odour of rue with butterflies

and the constant buzzing of the cicadas.

The orange and fiery ball, immense,

set alight the sea. The vast plain

became red asphalt where the air

seemed to make, of that still instant,

the plenitude of a sound, eternity.

There silence was imminence

of the ineffable, in a declared struggle

against the soft vibrations of the cultivated land

in a symphony of greenery.

The tranquil and serene passing of light

engraved, motionless, shapes and colours

before descending behind the horizon

where the sea devoured them slowly.

Elegies, 1986

Translated by Núria Cohen.

(Palma, 1943 - 2013). Jaume Pomar Llambias was a poet, essayist and narrator. He studied journalism and Philosophy and Letters and is the author of an extensive body of work comprising Tota la ira dels justos (1967), Història personal (1979), Frontissa (1993), Elegies (1986) and L´illa i el silenci (2009). Together with Guillem Frontera he ran the poetry collection La Sínia from 1965 to 1968. He also studied the oeuvre of Llorenç Villalonga and wrote numerous essays and biographical books on the writer.