erin mouré poem

{it is not weather for boots anymore. but i like this picture.}

The following is a poem by Erin Mouré from her book Little Theatres (or Aturuxos Calados). The book is in English and Galego, or Galician (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician)

She moves with such fluidity between the languages -- in some cases, mirror versions of the poems appear together. However, they aren't exact reflections, word-for-word translations -- each is distinctly its own self.

This poem is very comforting to me; it makes me think of precisely how I feel lying in my field, my backbone pressed up against the earth, how my anxiety lessens, my boundaries, nerves, feelings blurred. Forgetting where the edges of my skin and the nettles & wheat stubble separate, feeling so akin to that ground.

Soidade (English version)

by Erin Moure

All my life I've had a tough time

breathing.

I get scared and feel alone,

me and the earth.

Which me is it talking in the first person?

Should I get up? But I want to lie down.

Sometimes all I have

is water gulped with air

and cut into every membrane.

I try not to let it make me sad. I just say

(Which me is it talking in the first person?)

That as long as a carrot can be orange,

I'm going to be orange too.

I'm not going to live with sadnesses.

But free myself, céibome das tristuras da vida mesma,

and touch my face to the soil,

and breathe with the breathing

of the earth.