Gemma Gorga
Translated from the Catalan by Sharon Dolin
While We Are Making Love
It is raining
so delicately
only the tiny
scented heart
of the rosebush
gets wet.
§
Mentre ens estimem
Plou
amb tanta delicadesa
que del roser
només es mulla
el cor minúscul
de l’olor.
Yellow-Legged Gull (Larus michahellis)
Only
one who comes
by flight
knows how to tread
the small edges
of sand
without wrinkling it.
§
Gavià argentat (Larus michahellis)
Només
qui ve del vol
sap caminar
per les vores petites
de la sorra
sense arrugar-la.
Passion Degree Zero
How many things we experience
for the first time
every morning, noon, and night—
and for us
nothing seems
new enough.
§
El grau zero de la passió
Tantes coses com estrenem
–cada matí, cada tarda, cada nit–
i res
no ens sembla
prou nou.
While We Were in the Heart of the Forest
We were speaking
in such hushed tones
as if we were walking
among the leafy shelves
of a library full of
reading birds.
We learned to be careful:
what you say in the heart of the forest
is sucked in by the mushrooms’ ears
all the way to the earth’s interior—
there where the dead are sleeping
who, the orphans of stories, feed on them.
§
Mentre érem al cor del bosc
Parlàvem
en veu tan baixa
com si caminéssim
entre les prestatgeries
frondoses d’una biblioteca
plena d’ocells lectors.
Vam aprendre a ser curosos:
el que dius al cor del bosc
és xuclat per les orelles dels bolets
cap a l’interior de la terra:
allà on dormen els morts
que, orfes d’històries, se n’alimenten.
Gemma Gorga has published seven collections of poetry in Catalan, most recently Mur (2017) and Viatge al centre (2020). She has also published two memoirs as well as translations from English to Catalan of the Indian poets Dilip Chitre, Kamala Das, and Arun Kolatkar, as well as a co-translation of selected poems by Edward Hirsch. She is Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Barcelona.
Sharon Dolin is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Imperfect Present, the prose memoir Hitchcock Blonde, and two books of translation from Catalan: Book of Minutes (2019) and Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems by Gemma Gorga (2021). Voyage to the Center, also by Gemma Gorga and translated by Sharon Dolin, is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2027.