Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
We showed up late to the house of words.
Now we grope our way down stairs as painful
as vertebrae and search between the wall’s plastered
shards for some living syllable — sister to bread
and poverty — to bring to our lips.
Such as a name, a woman’s name.
The bone of a woman’s name lost between the stones
of these walls that once upon a time housed
flesh inside. And perhaps a jewel
a little box
a mirror you could ask
so many things.
Digue’m, mirall
Vam fer tard a la casa de les paraules.
I ara baixem a les palpentes escales adolorides
com vèrtebres i busquem entre el calçobre
alguna síl·laba viva, germana del pa
i la penúria, per dur-nos als llavis.
Com ara un nom. Un nom de dona.
L’os d’un nom de dona extraviat entre les pedres
d’aquests murs que un dia foren habitats
carn endins. I potser un joiell,
una capseta,
un mirall a qui poder preguntar
tantes coses.
* * * * *
Verbal Alchemy
From clay I create a word that endures.
From clay, from water, from the split
reality that slowly matures
in the shadow of the word sung from my lips.
With two hands I knead the hard substance
until it assumes the shape of the desired word.
I take bread, the circle, pure joyousness,
saltiness, ferns, the outburst
of young skin and love’s flame,
and I write its verbal terrain.
This sweet yearning to spark
with the word the depths of the dark.
Make gold from nothing but the vital name
and let the rest go up in smoke.
Alquímia verbal
Del fang en faig paraula que perdura.
Del fang, de l’aigua i de la realitat
esberlada que lentament madura
a l’ombra del mot que el llavi ha cantat.
Pasto amb dues mans la matèria dura
fins que pren forma de mot desitjat.
Prenc el pa, el cercle, la joia pura,
la salabror, la falguera, l’esclat
de la pell jove i la flor de l’amor,
i n’escric la geografia verbal.
Aquest dolç desfici de portar llum
i paraula per pèlags de foscor!
Fer or del no-res amb el nom que cal
i deixar volar la resta com fum.
* * * * *
Oh Muse
With every inspiration, you show up.
But sustained inspiration
is dizzying, turns
my blood blue and drunk,
smoke-filled — and after
smoke, comes ash.
From time to time,
please,
don’t show up.
No open sesame —
even if the perverse genie
of my voice
entreats you.
From time to time,
let me unword
body and abode.
Oh Musa
Arribes amb cada inspiració.
Però la inspiració sostinguda
mareja, fa la sang blava
i èbria, l’omple de fum
–i després del fum
ve la cendra–.
De tant en tant,
si et plau,
no arribis.
No t’obris, sèsam,
encara que t’ho demani
el geni pervers
de la veu.
De tant en tant,
permet-me desparaular
casa i cos.
* * * * *
Decreation
Learn from crabs
the peaceful art of going backwards,
learn to unlearn,
go shoeless, digress,
surprise yourself yet again,
look at an apple until you liberate it
from the fine dust of allegory,
know nothing
about what you should know,
forget artificial rhetoric
and the boring mechanics of the atom,
look without saying I am looking,
love without saying I am loving,
leave verses unfinished,
leave verses,
leave.
Decreixement
Aprendre dels crancs
l’art pacífic d’anar enrere,
aprendre a desaprendre,
descalçar-se, desviar-se,
sorprendre’s i de nou sorprendre’s,
mirar una poma fins alliberar-la
de la polsina de l’al·legoria,
no saber res
del que s’ha de saber,
oblidar la retòrica sintètica
i la mecànica avorrida de l’àtom,
mirar sense dir estic mirant,
estimar sense dir estic estimant,
deixar els versos inacabats,
deixar els versos,
deixar.
* * * * *
Sharon Dolin on Gemma Gorga’s Work
“I believe much of Gorga’s work gestures toward the unsayable, the unsaid. My goal as translator is to create a poem in English that can sustain such moments of inquiry and transcendence. In her most recent collection Voyage to the Center (2020), a reader may be struck by the minimalism of the poems and their urge to wrest meaning from the silence.”
The four poems presented here are included in Late to the House of Words, selected poems by Gemma Gorga, translated by Sharon Dolin. Published by Saturnalia Books on October 15, 2021.