Poetry: A Personal Vision Poem by Marta Pessarrodona

Just as the priest of the Mallorcan islands said:
keep scanning the horizon for things to come.
Beyond the 'Atlàntida', a woman poet averred
that through the past as well there is a road.

We know that all is just if nothing lies.
In the beginning is the word, and wayward now.

A citizen of Britain taught us
thirty years could make us seem antique:
the queen whose eyes transmuted into pearls,
in April, month of risk and well-bred cruelties.

At home our epitaph was being written by a dandy:
the cold was close at hand, sprinkled with melancholy.

The angel belonging to the poet-saint, he of the cross,
luckily signed us when we were still but small.
Later, we had to venerate him, seek him out,
each time we wanted him to come and call.

Nobody forewarned us of the high risk we ran.
Nobody warned us everything, but everything, would change.

Poetry is passion, always. Love depends
on prose, even the flowery kind.
It is the apex of the literary pyramid and,
jealously, they dress her as imprisoned kin.

Lily among thistles of our ancient lyrics, of our knight.
Rose whose thorns will cause, with luck, divine blood to gush out.

English translation by Anna Crowe