Llibre de Sinera

XXXV

Here the voyage ends. When I step off the boat,
I know eyes closed what lies before me:
always steep with goats and with shrubs
of lavender, fennel, spurge
that those slim hands of the quiet breeze
scarcely rouse on the top of Mal Temps.
Strict limits of an old land:
the processions of cypresses behind the sun’s wain
staggers along the long dry roads
and, in crossing the tiny crest, makes
light and distance of the western sky.
I’ve given my life for the difficult gain
of a few bare words.
I’ve seen my life as a wall
in the silence of the evening and its passing.

Salvador Espriu, “Here the voyage ends. When I step off the boat”. A: Selected Poems. Traducció de Louis J. Rodrigues. Manchester: Carcanet, 1997, p. 131.