Mireu-los: són una colla de gossos rònecs
acostumats a envair, a fonyar jardins.
Freds, desvergonyits, res no els detura
–ni aquest grup de poetes que malda, també,
per donat sentit a la vergonya de la vida.
Coixos, orbs, nafrats de paparres,
encara ensumen amb llur fúria esmorteïda
la gossa vell que habita aquest jardí.
I això que ens importuna, ens els acosta:
animals impúdics, fidels, envilits,
que, com nosaltres, assetgen, furients o defallits,
la quimera de l’amor: un poder suprem
que, anorreant-los, els pugui redimir.
***
Keen trespassers trampling flowerbeds,
they’re a pack of mangy dogs;
look at them: cold, immoderate,
nothing curbs their roaming—
not even this band of poets
likewise striving
to make meaning of life’s shame.
Blind, tumbledown, tick-bedeviled,
yet they still sniff,
with muffled fury,
at the old she-dog,
tenant of this yard.
But what begs to us
binds us to them:
shameless, loyal, reviled,
beasts, like us, that mount
furious or half-hearted assault
against love’s insanity:
supreme power
upending and redeeming them
in the same breath.
Translated from the Catalan by Cyrus Cassells