Noel Duffy nació en Dublín en 1971 y estudió Física Experimental en el Trinity College de Dublín. Después de un breve período en la investigación, se dedicó a la escritura y pasó a co-editar (con Theo Dorgan) la antología Watching the River Flow: Un siglo de Poesía en Irlanda (Poetry Ireland, 1999). Fue el ganador en 2003 del Premio de Poesía Chapbook START por su poemario, The Silence After y más recientemente el Premio de Poesía Firewords. Su obra de teatro, The Rainstorm, fue producida para el Festival Fringe de Dublín en 2006. Su trabajo ha aparecido ampliamente en Irlanda (incluida Poetry Ireland Review, Film Ireland and The Dublin Review), así como en el Reino Unido, EE.UU., Bélgica y Sudáfrica.
WEB: http://noelduffy.net/
Las Lunas
Todo el día él ha esperado que oscureciera
al tiempo que los carruajes traqueteaban por el patio
debajo de su ventana el grito de los puesteros
en el mercado llenando el aire hasta el atardecer.
Ahora todo se ha aquietado en las calles angostas
Orion trepa desde el sur y la campana de la catedral
entona la solemne nota del Angelus sobre Padua.
Él se calienta las manos con los extinguidos rescoldos de su fuego,
luego enfoca el telescopio por sobre los techos
de las casas de los mercaderes en la plaza,
bien alto por encima de su mundo de comercio e intercambio,
sus libros de balances y contadas horas.
Y como, al mirar más de cerca, el cielo estalla
en el ojo de su explorador, la noche más derrochadora
de lo que podría haberse imaginado,
las Siete Hermanas, titilando y familiares
elevándose por sobre el horizonte y Júpiter, el punto más brillante,
en lo alto de toda la oscuridad, nada hasta hacerse nítido
con las cuatro lunas fijas en su órbita,
presencias fantasmagóricas alrededor del
clima cambiante de otro planeta. Esas extrañas estaciones
que ha presenciado en los cielos pero ninguna como esta
gigante tormenta arremolinándose en la distancia, su iris de sangre
que lo busca a través de los espacios vacíos
como si fuera el ojo de Dios que lo ha encontrado
enmarcado en la ventana, su vista débil
única prueba contra toda la ignorancia y la duda
de que a veces un corazón puede perder un latido
y después, nada será lo mismo.
Traducción: Marina Kohon
The Moons
All day he has waited for the light to fade
as carts and carriages rattled by in the courtyard
below his window, the shouts of traders
in the marketplace filling the air till dusk.
Now all has grown quiet in the narrow streets
as Orion climbs from the south and the cathedral bell
intones the solemn note of the Angelus over Padua.
He warms his hands by the dying embers of his fire,
then aims his telescope above the rooftops
of the merchants’ houses on the square,
high above their world of commerce and trade,
their balanced ledgers and numbered hours.
And how, on looking closer, the sky explodes
in the viewfinder, the night more profligate
than he could’ve ever imagined it,
the Seven Sisters, shimmering and familiar,
rising above the horizon and Jupiter, brightest point
in all the darkness overhead, swims into focus
its four moons fixed in their circuits,
circling like ghostly presences across the shifting
weather of another planet. Such strange seasons
he has witnessed in the heavens but none like this
giant storm churning in the distance, its blooded iris
searching him out across the empty spaces
as though it were the eye of God that had found him
framed in this window, his failing sight
his only proof against all ignorance and doubt
that sometimes the heart can miss a beat
and is never quite the same after.
A Stone
An inert mass in the palm,
egg-like, smoothed by weather,
too cold to be living or dying.
The furious energies of matter
are arrested here, made still for a moment
like a breath held under water.
In the grain and speckles of its surface
is a chronicle in miniature
of sky and earth, a prehistory
of spirit; then letting go, the invisible
magic of release and fall,
gravity’s angel in the undergrowth.
The Rings
Washing my face my eye catches
the silver of the ring on my left hand.
My surprise, every time!
My face stares back at me from the mirror,
your naked body pale in the shadows
as you bend to recover your dress
from the floor. I turn.
There are such moments when we could
almost believe . . . such moments.
*
How last night in the hotel lobby the power
failed again and we gathered around the gaslight
with the others, Mohammed playing drums
and telling jokes I had already heard in Dublin,
the Americans and their stories of the desert.
How you said so little, while I, tempted at every turn,
elaborated on the details of our life together -
you, silent and unhappy in the shadows.
How one smile would’ve been enough.
*
That day in Dublin before we left,
the rain bucketed down on us.
We walked out among the city streets oblivious
in a trance of expectation.
Then stopping at a stall on College Green
bought two matching silver rings -
cover for our travelling together
in Islamic North Africa, our faked marriage
and imaginary honeymoon in better
weather. We laughed at the silliness of it,
but pressed the rings deep into our pockets
and thought of nothing else all evening.
*
Today I find your ring on the dresser.
Last night before you went to sleep
I noticed how, tired of unnecessary
fictions, you placed it there,
and I knew that you would not wear it again.
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