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ANDREU VIDAL (born 1959)

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AZBE (Translation by Hillary Gardner)

Quiet, Azbe, and listen

to this immense silence,

punctured by smells and fierce color.

Now is when

trees make mistakes,

and the birds, dismayed,

snap at the three faces of night.

There's no soul not praying

in the house of dreams.

No soul not falling on the stairway to heaven.

And the exact

machinery of time, dazzling prodigy

of parts and gears, goes on turning

backwards,

white-hot, screaking:

The milk returns

to the withered jugs; slowly

rotten flesh recomposes and the woods

take root skywards;

the light

passes the moon on its way back to the sun,

and an idol of stone

floats over the ocean.

You and I,

sweet and tragic Azbe,

still haven't been born.

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