de claus e o alacrán

Lara Dopazo Ruibal

deixaremos a cidade arrasada
cos seus peixes mortos de ollos fóra das órbitas
e as lecturas das súas entrañas
ao escarnio de todo o mundo.
deitaremos os corpos cansos ás aforas da cidade
mentres arde
e sobre as súas cinsas cuspiremos
para quedar cinguidas a ela para sempre.
cos escombros faremos un vestido
co que taparnos do lume.
cos escombros, un pombal de insectos
unha corte para o gando morto
un funeral
por cada habitante da cidade que nós propias
asfixiamos na vertixe do tremor
 
na vertixe do tremor
abrirá a terra unha fenda e
desde o alto
miraremos como a fenda o devora todo
 


eu ás veces soño que existe amador
como se amador puidese existir
el, as súas condicións de posibilidade.
amador ten dous nomes
un é amador
outro é guadalupe
e eu soño con chamalo desde o medio dunha eira
unha tarde de sol
polos seus dous nomes, amador guadalupe
e que a miña voz faga tremer a herba
 
querelo como só se quere
á carne que sae dunha despois de sangrar

pero eu sei que amador non vai ser
porque o proceso de ser parece tan doloroso
como unha tarde de calor
como os picazos no peito despois de traballar mil horas
por un xornal mercenario

a min prodúceme moitísima tristura pensar nel
nos seus ollos inmensos
cheos de noite
coa placenta tatuada no iris.
prodúceme ansiedade pensar nel
no baleiro de pedra
nun eido que non existe. nas ovellas mansas
que dormen ao meu pé
coa súa brancura de memoria

a perda, e todas esas cousas.
quero escribirlle ducias de cartas
que nunca hei escribir
polo medo a ser chamada enferma
 
entón fago unha coroa de flores
e trenzo o pelo e recólloo por riba dos ollos
pero como non teño mans, non podo amañalo ben
e aleteo sen rumbo enredada nas paredes do cuarto.
bato contra as fiestras, contra as portas desta casa
que non ten portas

os meus ollos absorben luz
pero non identifican as formas
 
amador, é tristísimo que non existas, choro
é tristísimo
ese peito baleiro. ese útero baleiro.
gardar o teu nome bordado na roupa da casa
coma se estiveses morto
a mortalla, as sabáns, os panos
os manteis e a cubertería con debuxos de flores
a louza rabuñada de tanto lavar
no lavadoiro onde beben as vacas e eu
limpo a parte anterior dos ollos
a boca
 
pero ti non sabes o que son as vacas
nunca vas mirar unha vaca
 
amador, que nome bonito dispuxen pra ti
que peito, de non ser
esta carraxe. este odio
este amor todo descoñecido.
berro o teu nome polo eido e os veciños
saen á porta da casa e miran
con medo
os pés cheos de feridas.
pero tras dos eidos está o mar
as bateas calmas, as illas.
e despois da herba e do mar estás ti
amador doloroso. útero florido
 


plantei dentro do corpo unha figueira
as súas raíces son tan fortes que me atravesan

afío unha machada e golpeo
con toda a forza do mundo
pero esas raíces nunca rompen
 
só abren co lume
 
médrame a figueira dentro mentres o alacrán
caza as formigas que me saen dos ollos
cómeas como se fosen moscas

Read the English translation

Listen to the original read by the poet:

This is a selection of my translations of poems into English from claus e o alacrán (claus and the scorpion) by the Galician poet Lara Dopazo Ruibal. This poetry collection won the 2017 Fiz Vergara Vilariño Award, one of the most prestigious poetry competitions in the Galician language. In 2018 it was published by the publishing house Espiral Maior. It is a book that talks about the complexities of living in this world and the dynamics that are generated because and in spite of it. claus e o alacrán raises the questions: who do we become and how do we contend with violence and pain? And how do we draw strength from vulnerability?
 
claus e o alacrán (claus and the scorpion) is a political book, written in a non-hegemonic language, Galician, deeply influenced by queer theories. The book is read from the guts as well as from the heart and intellect. It also maintains the narrative tension with profoundly poetic writing. It is a book that needs several readings and rest, for it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth but a powerful message: even the most vulnerable being can be powerful and violent.
 
These poems are real. They speak of an aftermath of something horrible, and that aftermath is actually ongoing horror, it is the everyday struggle that the speaker goes through—the struggle that the readers go through. Dopazo Ruibal’s poems portray a rawness and vulnerability that mirror our own, and that is what makes them hard, that is what resonates with the readers’ experience. Yet another layer to this poetry collection is that there are no clear boundaries between what transpires within and outside the self. Amidst all the violence and destruction is the added difficulty the speaker has of forging their identity.
 
Amidst all these questions and pain and violence and loss, what gives us hope is Dopazo Ruibal’s poetry itself. It returns our humanity back to the world and to us.

Lara Dopazo Ruibal was born in Marín (Galicia, Spain). She has a B.A. in journalism and two M.A.s: one in international cooperation and one in theoretical and practical philosophy. Dopazo Ruibal has published four poetry collections and she is the co-editor and co-author of the experimental essay volume A través das marxes: Entrelazando feminismos, ruralidades e comúns. Her poetry collection ovella was awarded the Francisco Añón Prize in 2015, and with claus e o alacrán she received the Fiz Vergara Vilariño Prize in 2017. Dopazo Ruibal was recently a resident artist at the Spanish Royal Academy in Rome for the academic year 2018/2019.

Laura Cesarco Eglin is the translator of Of Death. Minimal Odes by Hilda Hilst, (co•im•press, 2018), which won the 2019 Best Translated Book Award in Poetry. She is the co-translator from the Portuñol of Fabián Severo’s Night in the North (Eulalia Books, 2020). Her translations from Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician have appeared in a variety of journals, including Timber, Exchanges, Modern Poetry in Translation, Eleven Eleven, The Massachusetts Review, Cordella Magazine, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, and The Puritan. Cesarco Eglin is the author of five poetry collections, including Calling Water by Its Name (trans. Scott Spanbauer; Mouthfeel Press, 2016), Occasions to Call Miracles Appropriate (The Lune; Lunamopolis, 2015), Reborn in Ink (trans. Catherine Jagoe and Jesse Lee Kercheval; The Word Works, 2019) and the forthcoming chapbook Life, One Not Attached to Conditionals (Thirty West Publishing House). She is the co-founding editor and publisher of Veliz Books.