BUT EVERYBODY IS DREAMING - PERO TODOS SUEÑAN / 2004

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Poemas de Cuba contemporánea.
Seleccionados y traducidos por Rosalind M. Gill.
Edición: Lugus Libros / 2004.
Diseño: Lugus Libros Latin America Inc.
Cubierta: Reinaldo Pagán Ávila.
Prólogo: Rosalind M. Gill.

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Rosalind M. Gill was born and grew up in St. John's, Newfoundland. She is Chair of the School of Translation, Glendon College, York University, Toronto. She teaches translation as well as French as a second language. She has published a language teaching manual (Le Français dans le village global, Canadian Scholars' Press, 1999) and she has translated two books on Quebec (Quebec Women a History, Women's Press, 1987, and A Sociocritque of Translation-Theatre and Alterity in Quebec, University of Toronto Press, 1996). She is presently working on translations of Hispanic literature, particularly Cuban poetry. She has also published her own short stories in Canadian journals, including The Antigonish Review and Canadian Fiction Magazine.

THE CITY OF BRIDGES IS COMMITTING SUICIDE,
.........putting itself to sleep.
In the house of the musicians
.........a girl, her face darkened with fear
.........has placed a shell beneath the sound;
.........but everybody is dreaming,
.........closing their eyes and dreaming that there is no need to jump,
.........to hurl yourself off the bridge
.........when there's music to fill up the labyrinths.
On the stairway, they have placed mountains of papers to stop people from going up
.........from going out on the balconies,
.........and baring their breasts
.........and the city like a witness, needs some minimal testimony
.........a piece of heart to throw off the bridge.

They have begun to share out in equal portions the bitter tea
.........and the pieces of lemon cut
.........with the sharp gesture of sadness,
.........they have begun to cut absence in two,
.........but the girl
.........does not want to remember that there was a time when she was not alone,
.........once, she could not picture solitude.

On the antique clock, everyone is eager to leave a mark,
.........a gouge in the wood that time will make bleed,
.........then, all wrongdoings will be rewarded
.........all blood spilled will be like old bitterness spilling
.........then we won't have to worry
.........about the girl flying ever so lightly off the bridge, violating the air.
The musician is a docile restless animal
.........the city is his mask;
.........he has seen the waters fill up with light and dreams,
.........but the girls have decided to cut their hair off,
.........they've decided to put on a mask so they can forget the music.