Grandmother Magdalena Poem by Antoni Vidal Ferrando

Another winter has not vanquished your absence.
The sunset will come back and it is as if you were
still the weary silhouette
that submits to being possessed by a smile
on being kissed, that hand of yours
that lights the larder candle and labours
to bring out bottles or blood-red
cherries or the assault of the terrible
sweetness of your jam.
We live as long as someone remains in the unmarred
arcades that we constructed
one day with time before us; and our dawn
is the present that we are in loyal
eyes when night falls.

Translated by Julie Wark