Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Jordi Doce

WINTRY

Time has not given you the answers,
just new questions.
            The light abates
over time, the streets become deserted,
from your room you only see
a future of tattered branches,
night crouched on the rooftops,
and you think you even feel that stillness
that precedes snow
like an inheld breath,
something that waits to be
and despairs at being.
        Winter
makes everything simpler,
with its chisel of cold and wants.
It is a discipline,
an agreement between the world and its flip side,
the shadow side on which it rests.

The color of the evening
is the color of thought.
Upon the street there falls
a rinsed light, almost insulated,
and everything withdraws, drops away
as in a camera lens,
as if the world were a diagram of itself,
a sparse yet efficient map
that unearths the root of things.

The mind is pleased with winter.
Soothed by its edges,
its quiet economy,
the way it sticks to what it has.
It simplifies everything,
even these uneasy questions
that change over time,
that don't change.

INVERNAL

INVERNAL

El tiempo no te ha dado las respuestas,
sólo nuevas preguntas.
 Declina con las horas
la luz, las calles se despueblan,
desde tu cuarto sólo ves
un futuro de ramas harapientas,
la noche agazapada en los tejados,
y crees sentir, incluso, esa quietud
que precede a la nieve
como un aliento contenido,
algo que espera a ser
y desespera.
El invierno
lo hace todo más simple,
con su buril de frío y de carencias.
Es una disciplina,
un acuerdo entre el mundo y su reverso,
el lado de penumbra en que se apoya.

El color de la tarde
se iguala al pensamiento.
Cae sobre la calle
una luz aclarada, casi exenta,
y todo se distancia y adormece
como en un objetivo,
como si el mundo fuera un diagrama del mundo,
un mapa desnutrido y eficaz
que ha dado con el hueso de las cosas.

La mente se complace en el invierno.
Le alivia su barbecho,
su rara indiferencia,
la forma en que se atiene a lo que tiene.
Todo lo simplifica,
también estas preguntas impacientes
que cambian con el tiempo,
que no cambian.
Close

WINTRY

Time has not given you the answers,
just new questions.
            The light abates
over time, the streets become deserted,
from your room you only see
a future of tattered branches,
night crouched on the rooftops,
and you think you even feel that stillness
that precedes snow
like an inheld breath,
something that waits to be
and despairs at being.
        Winter
makes everything simpler,
with its chisel of cold and wants.
It is a discipline,
an agreement between the world and its flip side,
the shadow side on which it rests.

The color of the evening
is the color of thought.
Upon the street there falls
a rinsed light, almost insulated,
and everything withdraws, drops away
as in a camera lens,
as if the world were a diagram of itself,
a sparse yet efficient map
that unearths the root of things.

The mind is pleased with winter.
Soothed by its edges,
its quiet economy,
the way it sticks to what it has.
It simplifies everything,
even these uneasy questions
that change over time,
that don't change.

WINTRY

Time has not given you the answers,
just new questions.
            The light abates
over time, the streets become deserted,
from your room you only see
a future of tattered branches,
night crouched on the rooftops,
and you think you even feel that stillness
that precedes snow
like an inheld breath,
something that waits to be
and despairs at being.
        Winter
makes everything simpler,
with its chisel of cold and wants.
It is a discipline,
an agreement between the world and its flip side,
the shadow side on which it rests.

The color of the evening
is the color of thought.
Upon the street there falls
a rinsed light, almost insulated,
and everything withdraws, drops away
as in a camera lens,
as if the world were a diagram of itself,
a sparse yet efficient map
that unearths the root of things.

The mind is pleased with winter.
Soothed by its edges,
its quiet economy,
the way it sticks to what it has.
It simplifies everything,
even these uneasy questions
that change over time,
that don't change.
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère