WINTER STAMP

The town remains quiet and sad,
all the houses closed,
the work is long and yields
and the days are short...

The seasoning has redone the fields,
where the people is busy:
eliminating the fallow
and harvesting the olives.

It only remains in the village
the old man trembling with cold,
who sunbathes the warm sun in the square;

while the clock with its serious touch
counts the hours in check
and time, static, doesn't go by...

"Estampa d’Hivern" De l'alba al migdia: poemes lírics: 1918-1928. (“Winter Stamp” From dawn to noon: lyric poems: 1918-1928), Barcelona: La Revista, 1929

Translated by Carlota Oliva.

(Sóller, 1890 – Palma, 1979). Guillem Colom i Ferrà was a poet, playwright and translator. With a sound education in the humanities, he studied Philosophy and Letters in Barcelona, where he came into contact with the Catalan noucentisme. He organised literary gatherings in his home where writers such as Carles Riba, Clementina Arderiu or Josep M. López-Picó were regulars. His works include Iuvenília (1918), Ofrena mística (1949), La terra al cor (1957), Primavera d´hivern (1969), a volume of memoirs Entre el caliui la cendra (1972).