Uxío Novoneyra
trans. by Erin Moure
What colour’s the high heather?
The rugged peaks enter winter.
Is it the ranges that rise to the sky?
Is it sky that descends?
Is it fog
or mists in the gazing eye?
I know not what watches over earth
what watches over soul.
I’m very sure it’s right to feel secure.
I’m not sure it’s right to feel secure.
Up there where the gaze knowingly moves
something’s sure.
The first time the child saw it he surely knew.
Yet stubbornness stubbornly prevails.
Wherever I feel this sureness
Again I must lose it to find it once more.
Uxío Novoneyra (1930–1999) was one of the greatest Galician poets of the twentieth century. Steadfast in his defense of the Galician language and of Galician mountain culture in the face of the homogenizing forces of centralist Spain, he produced a poetic oeuvre rich in sound, syllable, silence, and gesture. His spirit of defiance and of love is still alive in Galician poetry.
Erín Moure is a poet and translator of poetry. Recent works include a translation of Wilson Bueno’s Paraguayan Sea (finalist for Best Translated Book Award). 2019 will see her translation of Galician Lupe Gómez’s Camouflage (Circumference), a co-translation with Roman Ivashkiv of Ukrainian Yuri Izdryk’s Smokes (Lost Horse), and her own The Elements (Anansi). Find her online at erinmoure.strikingly.com.