Hills, South Truro, 1930
I climbed to the very top of the mountain
to speak to myself. You know,
about the present, the future.
Bared to the sun,
I held the prerogative
of seeing many things coming to pass.
It must be due to the scent of earth
and distant sea, which were consoling.
It must be due to birdsong. It must be
due to trains. Is it due to the grandeur
of this vista?
As the sun
beat down I allowed my gaze to range
and understood my limits and that a slew
of pot-boilers hinders me. That I am diverted
by punk points of light. That I dedicate
no immortality to doing nothing.
That I hear a whisper from inside.
I say not a word and the surrounding world
suddenly possesses me and bears me away.
I grow lighter. Become leaf-bearing
and even burst into bloom. From the peak
I delight in the superhuman
contemplation of dominions.
But thereafter my lot will be
to descend to the plain, returning
to my kind, and thus, as if I were such,
I shall resume an everyday likeness
squandering time and resources.
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About the Author
Ernest Farrés is an editor at La Vanguardia, a Barcelona newspaper, and author of three collections of poems in Catalan.
Lawrence Venuti is author of The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. His version of Ernes Farrés book Edward Hopper won the Robert Fagles Translation prize.
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