La Tierra Fonda (Elias Veiga)

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La Tierra Fonda
by Elias Veiga
2004 Trabe
pp 59

La Tierra Fonda (Deep earth) is a collection of poems in Asturian by Elias Veiga. When I first read them I had just spent a few weeks with him and a bunch of friends in County Ayande in the rugged mountains of western Asturias. I had no idea he wrote poetry.

I should have seen it coming, though, given his peculiar taste in music and his Buck Mulligan type of humor. He even knew about Beat Happening, a folk-punk band from Olympia, WA, founded by the enigmatic Calvin Johnson and Bret Lunsford, together with Heather.

After a day of hunting for mushrooms in Tineu, he handed me this book of poetry published by Trabe titled La Tierra Fonda. Here is ‘Historia de veranu’, along with an English translation. He’s working on a new collection of poems right now.

Historia de veranu

Alcuerdome de pequenu
cuando Milio d'Anrique me tiraba
piedrancayas a la ventana'l cuartu
porque queria dir de vil.la a Pumar
a ver una moza de Barcelona.
Yeramos unos guelopetes,
pero ya nos prestaba Bob Dylan
cantando aquel.lo de 'I want you'
Xubiamos un radiocase
pa que nos escuitara ya s'asomara
naquel balcon de cortinas blancas,, blanquisimas,
de casa la buela.
Eva se l.lamaba
como aquel.la muyer d'al.lacul.lo
que cumia manzanas casi desnuda.
Eva se l.lamaba
ya yera de Barcelona,
queria ser bomberu,
como diba ser una muyer bomberu?
Como vei xugar una muyer al futbol?
Cuando se viou.
Ya asina tol veranu de mil novecientos
ya nun sei cuantos,
nos quince, el.la dieciseis,
pero un dia vimosla marchar
nun taxi negru ya mariel.lu,
pemeque diba l.lorando,
ya pasou a nuesu l.lau,
ya tirounos dous besinos,
ya nos quedamos al.li mirando
xelaos como calambrizos,
ya Dylan cantaba baxo,
ya mandounos una carta por Navida,
con una foto en color ampliada
xunta a un mozu que se l.lamaba Adan.


A summer’s tale

I remember being a youth
and Milio d’Anrique tossing stones
at my window
so I would tag along with him to Pumar
to see a girl from Barcelona.
We were uncouth, although we already liked Bob Dylan’ song
“I want you”.
We’d lug a cassette player
so that she’d hear us come and peek from the balcony
with the ultra-white curtains
at her Grandma’s house.
Her name was Eva,
like the woman who ate apples half nude.
Her name was Eva and she was from Barcelona
and she wanted to be a firefighter.
Who ever heard of a woman putting out fires?
Who ever heard of a woman playing soccer?
Who ever heard?
That’s how the summer of nineteen hundred and whatever transpired,
We were 15, she was 16.
Then one day we saw her take off
in a black and yellow cab.
She could have been bawling
as she passed by on the roadside
throwing two kisses our way.
We just stood there,
still like icycles,
while Dylan sang quietly in the background.
Later she sent us a Christmas card
with an enlarged color photograph
next to a boy called Adam.