| Silvia Plath -Mussel hunter at Rock Harbour- |
| Sunday, November 07, 2004 |
Mussel hunter at Rock Harbour
Silvia Plath (EEUU 1932-1963)
I carne before the water-
Colourists came to get the
Good of the Cape light that scours
Sand grit to sided crystal
And buffs and sleeks the blunt hulls
Of the three fishing smacks beached
On the bank of the river's
Backtracking raíl. I'd come for
Free fish-bait: the blue mussels
Clumped like bulbs at the grass-root
Margin of the tidal pools.
Dawn tide stood dead low. I smelt
Mud stench, shell guts, gulls' leavings;
Heard a queer crusty scrabble
Cease, and I neared the silenced
Edge of a cratered pool-bed
The mussels hung dull blue and
Conspicuous, yet it seemed
A sly world's hinges had swung
Shut against me. All held still.
Though I counted scant seconds,
Enough ates lapsed to win
Confidence of safe-conduct
In the wary otherworld
Eyeing me. Grass put forth claws;
Small mud knobs, nudged from under;
Displaced their domes as tiny
Knights might doff their casques. The crabs
Inched from their pygmy burrows
And from the trench-dug mud all
Camouflaged in mottled mail
Of browns and greens. Each wore one
Claw swollen to a shieid large
As itself—no fiddlers arm
Grown Gargantuan by trade,
But grown grimly, and grimly
Borne, for a use beyond my
Guessing of it. Sibilant
Mass-motived hordes, they sidled
out in a converging stream
Toward the pool-mouth, perhaps to
Meet the thin and sluggish thread
Of sea retracing its tide—
Way up the river-basin.
Or to avoid me. They moved
Obliqueiy with a dry-wet
Sound, with a gliterry wisp
And trickle. Could they feel mud
Pleasurable under claws
As I could between bare toes?
That question ended it — I
Stood shut out, for once, for all,
Puzzling the passage of their
Absolutely alien
Order as I might puzzle
At the clear tail of Halley's
Comet coolly giving my
Orbit the go-by, made known
By a family name it
Knew nothing of So the crabs
Went about their business, which
Wasn't fiddling, and I filled
A bit handkerchief with blue
Mussels. From what the crabs saw,
If they could see, I was one
Two-legged mussel-picket:
High on the airy thatching
Of the dense grasses I found
The husk of a fiddler-crab,
Intact, strangely strayed above
His world of lmud—green colour
And innards bleached and blown off
Somewhere by much sun and wind;
There was no telling if he'd
Died recluse or suicide
Or headstrong Columbus crab.
The crab-face, etched and set there,
Grimaced as skulls grimace: it
Had an Oriental look,
A samurai death mask done
On a tiger tooth, less for
Art's sake than God's. Far from sea—
Where red-freckled crab-backs, claws
And whole crabs, dead, their soggy
Bellies pallid and upturned,
Perform their shambling waltzes
On the waves' dissolving turn
And return, losing themselves
Bit by bit to their friendly
Element-this relic saved
Face, to face to bald-faced sun.
La mejillonera de Rock Harbour
Llegué antes de que los acuarelistas
captasen la enjundia
de la luz del Cabo que barre
cascajo contra cristal adherido
y pule y suaviza las romas conchas
de las tres barcas pesqueras varadas
en la orilla del plano
desandado del río. Yo buscaba
tentadora carnada: mejillones azules
asidos como cebollas por la raíz
al borde de charcos de marea.
Bajísima marea auroral. Olí
fangoso hedor, bofes de conchas, excrementos
de gaviotas; oí curiosa, costrosa rebatiña
cesar al acercarme al acallado borde
del fondo de un craterino charco.
Los mejillones, mortecinamente azules
y llamativos, parecían
ladinos goznes de un mundo
cerrado contra mí. Todo estaba inmóvil.
Aunque conté escasos segundos,
cuantioso tiempo gasté en ganar
aplomo de salvoconducto
entre el submundo receloso
que me miraba. La hierba urdía garras;
botoncillos de fango, expulsados del fondo,
quitándose las cúpulas como
diminutos caballeros sus cascos. Los cangrejos
salían lentos de sus íntimos hoyos
y de fangosos canales, todos
camuflaban sus jaspeadas mallas
en pardos y verdes. Cada uno blandía
hinchada garra contra un escudo grande
cuanto él mismo: no era un brazo de broma
agigantado por la costumbre,
mas cruelmente crecido y cruelmente
blandido, cuyo uso
yo no concebía. Sibilantes
hordas multiazuzadas sesgadas
en convergente torrente hacia
la boca del estanque, quizás hacia
el perezoso y tenue hilo
de mar desandando su ruta
fluvial camino arriba.
¿Querían evitarme? Avanzaban
sesgadamente, con acuoso antojo
y goteo. ¿Sentían el fango
gratamente bajo sus pinzas
como yo entre mis dedos desnudos?
Pregunta que marcó el final: me aparté,
hermética, de una vez por todas,
suspensa al paso de sus filas
radicalmente extrañas
como suspendiérame
la clara cola del cometa Halley
fríamente permitiendo pasar
mi órbita, revelada
por un apellido del que
él nada supiera. Y así los cangrejos
seguían su camino, que no erac
asual o banal, y yo llené
mi pañolón de azules
mejillones. Para los cangrejos,
si ver pudieran, yo sería
un mejillonero más. Entre la tupida
madeja herbosa encontré
la cáscara de un cangrejo, intacta,
extrañamente extraviada
sobre su fangoso mundo, y verde,
blanqueados sus bofes, esparcidos
doquier por viento y sol;
¿cómo saber si muriera
virgen o suicida
o tercamente colombino?
Su rostro cangrejil, trazado en aguafuerte.
Muecas contra calaverinas muecas:
tenía aire oriental,
máscara de samurai tallada
en colmillo de tigre, por Dios
más que por el arte. Lejos del mar:
donde pecosos dorsos cangrejiles, garras,
cangrejos enteros, muertos, sus empapados,
pálidos vientres vueltos boca arriba,
ejecutan patosos valses
sobre disolvente oleaje,
y vuelven, perdiéndose
pizca a pizca contra el afable
elemento: reliquia consoladora,
consuelo del sol rostricalvo.
Versión de Jesús PardoLabels: Silvia Plath |
posted by Alfil @ 7:56 PM  |
|
|
|
