Exordium Poem by Ponç Pons

Tutto che mi resta è già perduto
Quasimodo

Ronsard's roses are long faded now
and God is only one memory more
There are seas beyond the isle I have not seen
and places on green maps where I have not trod
Night is a chamber in the midst of the world
life a vacuum that with words I fill with sense
Where are the snows of which Villon sang
From joy's thick magma I have brought forth two sons
from the years' intimate well a yearning verse
The old owl has not returned this year
nor have sparrows nested in my small room
I dream of that immense Son Bou of the child
I am aging and read Shakespeare again

Translation from Catalan by Julie Wark