Poesia kaiera
Ene maite kuttun guztiak
Aita: aurten maldizioak jarri gaitu aparte,
amari segi diozulako bere lozorro hotzera arte;
zure bihotzean harria irakin du bigarren shock batek
eta ordaindu ezin duzun egoitza horretatik at
ihes egiten noiz utziko ote dizudan gabiltza, orobat:
Dunneseneko hogei traje, Ford ingeles bat,
urrezko giltza, artile fabrikako zure akzioak,
beste testamentu bateko marmarren lege-amodioak...
Kaxak ezezaguna zaidan jendearen argazkiz lepo daude.
Ukitzen ditut haien kartoizko aurpegiak. Desagertu egin behar dute.
Baina albumeko begiradek, zura bezain lodi,
haiengana lotzen naute. Behatzen diot mutiko txiki horri,
traje zimurra jantzita norbaiten zain, adi...
Gero dator turutari jostailu bati legez heltzen dion soldadua,
edota irribarrea ukatzen duen belusezko emakumezko heldua.
Zure aitaren aita da hori? Marinako ofiziala
postariz jantzia? Aita, denbora batetik hona,
noren bila zabiltzan jada ez du axola.
Ez dut inoiz jakingo aurpegi horien asmoa.
Albumean denak giltzaperatu eta botatzera noa.
Hona, ni jaio nintzen urtean zuk hasitakoa:
ebakin-kaieratxo horituak dirudi tabako hostoa,
hain zimur dago. Hooverrek demokratak garaitu
zitueneko egunkari-txatalak ni seinalatuz,
Debeku urteak; Hindenburg zepelinaren sute-albisteak,
eta berriagoak, gerrak zu piztu zintuenekoak.
Urte hartan, diruz ongi baina gaixorik,
alargun ederrarekin ezkondu zinen presaturik.
Zuk bigarren aukera hori izan aurretik,
zure lepo loditik zintzilik, negar egin nuen nik.
Hiru egunen buruan joan zinen mundutik.
Ezkontzako argazkiak, horra, turisten lekuetan.
Nassaurantz doan trenbidean lerrokatuta zaudete honetan.
Hemen, txalupa bizkorren lasterketan, kopa irabazle.
Hemen, tximeleta-esmokinez jantzita, urte zaharrez.
Hemen, gure txakurtegian, begirada arrosako zakurrekin
—zerri bezatuak legez korrika kaiolan, ekin eta ekin—.
Hemen, ahizpak saria irabazi zuen zaldi-lehian.
Beste honetan, gizonen artean gizon, duke baten eran.
Orain gorde egingo zaitut, ene mozkortia, ene marinela,
ene lehen zaindari galdua, maite-begiradak geroko direla.
Bost urteko diario hau, amak eraman zuen hiru urtez.
Deus esan gabe ere, argi esaten du nola zinen alkoholzale.
Gehiegi lo egiten zenuen, hala dio.
Jainkoarren, aita, Eguberrietan aldiro
zure odolez betetako ardo kopa dut edango?
Zure zurrunbilo sasoiko diarioa ene apalean dago,
nire sasoiak zeharka dezan arte. Metaketa aldi
honetan soilik eutsiko diot amodioari.
Izan ene kuttun ala ez, biziraungo zaitut;
nire aurpegi arraroa zuganantz makurtu
eta ber gisan beharko zaitut barkatu.
[1962]
All my Pretty Ones
Father, this year's jinx rides us apart / where you followed our mother to her cold slumber; / a second shock boiling its stone to your heart, / leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber / you from the residence you could not afford: / a gold key, your half of a woolen mill, / twenty suits from Dunne's, an English Ford, / the love and legal verbiage of another will, / boxes of pictures of people I do not know. / I touch their cardboard faces. They must go. // But the eyes, as thick as wood in this album, / hold me. I stop here, where a small boy / waits in a ruffled dress for someone to come ... / for this soldier who holds his bugle like a toy / or for this velvet lady who cannot smile. / Is this your father’s father, this commodore / in a mailman suit? My father, time meanwhile / has made it unimportant who you are looking for. / I’ll never know what these faces are all about. / I lock them into their book and throw them out. // This is the yellow scrapbook that you began / the year I was bom; as crackling now and wrinkly / as tobacco leaves: clippings where Hoover outran / the Democrats, wiggling his dry finger at me / and Prohibition; news where the Hindenburg went / down and recent years where you went flush / on war. This year, solvent but sick, you meant / to marry that pretty widow in a one-month rush. / But before you had that second chance, I cried / on your fat shoulder. Three days later you died. // These are the snapshots of marriage, stopped in places. / Side by side at the rail toward Nassau now; / here, with the winner's cup at the speedboat races, / here, in tails at the Cotillion, you take a bow, / here, by our kennel of dogs with their pink eyes, / running like show-bred pigs in their chain-link pen; / here, at the horseshow where my sister wins a prize; / and here, standing like a duke among groups of men. / Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, / my first lost keeper, to love or look at later. // I hold a five-year diary that my mother kept / for three years, telling all she does not say / of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept, / she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day / with your blood, will I drink down your glass / of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years / goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass. / Only in this hoarded span will love persevere. / Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you, / bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.