LEAVING L'EMPORDÀ, 'ÉS QUAN DORMO QUE HI VEIG CLAR'

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma are on their way to Barcelona after spending a few days in El Port de la Selva where they are going to pay a final tribute to an old friend and visit another, Tina Picotes.

Yesterday they took their bicycles and went up from El Port de la Selva to the Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes, one of the most imposing and mysterious buildings from where on a clear day you can even see the Serra de l'Albera, Canigó and the Pyrenees.

On the way back, they went down through Vilajuïga and returned to El Port de la Selva along the Llançà road, a road that allows you to enjoy an extraordinarily beautiful landscape and, although you have to keep your attention on the road 100%, it allows you to stop at different places and contemplate how the sea and the mountain coexist.

 

NOTES SOBRE EL PORT DE LA SELVA per J.V. Foix

Em trobaren ajaçat a la sorra quan ja tots els banyistes havien desertat la platja. Enganxats a la nuca i a l'esquena tenia papers de totes les colors amb inscripcions de duanes i de grans hotels i balnearis exòtics. Me'ls volien arrencar, però seguien trossos de carn viva. Els ulls dels cavalls els pesquen a la cova de la Colomera quan toquen les dotze de la nit. Només en aquell instant precís es poden obrir com qui obre una ostra. Llur pupil·la flota damunt un licor tan ardent, que mai cap llavi humà no ha pogut acostar-s'hi. No els mireu mai de fit a fit, perquè us prendrà per sempre una tristesa sense fi, i la passió per les cales inabordables lligarà la vostra vida al més misteriós dels destins.

NOTES ON PORT DE LA SELVA by J.V. Foix

They found me lying in the sand when all the swimmers had already abandoned the beach. Stuck on my back and the nape of my neck were pieces of paper in all colours with inscriptions from customs houses and from grand hotels and exotic spas. They wanted to tear them from me, but chunks of live flesh came off as well. They go fishing for horses' eyes in Colomera's cave when it strikes midnight. Only at that precise instant can they be opened as one opens an oyster. Their pupils float on a liquid which burns so strongly, that no human lips have ever been able to come near. Don't ever stare at them, because an endless sadness will take hold of you for good, and the passion for inaccessible inlets will bind your life to the most mysterious of destinies.

 

They arrived on Friday with J.V. Foix and his poetry and they leave in the same way, remembering his writings about this beautiful town and what is, perhaps, his best-known poem, the one that tells us about dreams as a way to escape from reality, especially when it is harder and crueler than you can bear.

In this poem, J.V. Foix reminds us of the Occitan poets who also sang of love at night surrounded by the dreamlike atmosphere, and even reminds us of Corto Maltese, the character of Hugo Pratt, who also uses dreams as a way of refuge (or escape) in Les Cèltiques. Calderón de la Barca also told us that life was a dream and Bernat Metge took advantage of the resource of dreams to be able to criticize society and the political power of the time and avoid the established censorship, and dreams allow us to live as we want and desire, that's why our beloved Bruce Springsteen also invites us to daydream...

 

És quan plou que ballo sol
Vestit d'algues, or i escata,
Hi ha un pany de mar al revolt
I un tros de cel escarlata,
Un ocell fa un giravolt
I treu branques una mata,
El casalot del pirata
És un ample gira-sol.
Es quan plou que ballo sol
Vestit d'algues, or i escata.

És quan ric que em veig gepic
Al bassal de sota l'era,
Em vesteixo d'home antic
I empaito la masovera,
I entre pineda i garric
Planto la meva bandera;
Amb una agulla saquera
Mato el monstre que no dic.
És quan ric que em veig gepic
Al bassal de sota l'era.

És quan dormo que hi veig clar
Foll d'una dolça metzina,
Amb perles a cada mà
Visc al cor d'una petxina,
Só la font del comellar
I el jaç de la salvatgina,
-O la lluna que s'afina
En morir carena enllà.
Es quan dormo que hi veig clar
Foll d'una dolça metzina.

 

It's when it rains I dance alone
Dressed in seaweed, scales and gold,
There's a patch of sea at a bend in the road
And a piece of scarlet sky,
A bird loops the loop
And a shrub branches out,
And the pirate's manor-house
Is a broad sunflower.
It's when it rains I dance alone
Dressed in seaweed, scales and gold.

It's when I laugh I see my hunched back
In the pond below the threshing floor,
I dress up as a man from antiquity
And harass the farm-girl,
And between pine grove
And kermes oak I plant my standard;
With a sail needle
I slay the monster whose name I do not utter.
It's when I laugh I see my hunched back
In the pond below the threshing floor.

It's when I sleep I see all clearly,
Deranged by a sweet venom,
With pearls in either hand
I live in the heart of a scallop shell,
I am the spring in the gulley
And the bed
Of the wild creature,
—Or the moon who becomes more delicate
As she dies beyond the ridge—.
It's when I sleep I see all clearly,
Deranged by a sweet venom.

 

El Port de la Selva, April 1939

On he deixat les claus...

 

More information: Anglo-Catalan Society

 

I quan tot just si la tenora sona,
Pastors i estels perduts serrat enllà,
La Verge i Tu tots sols, a l'Hora Sola,
I els corns reials qui sap qui els sentirà,
Vindré mudat, al costat de la dona,
Amb els vestits de quan ens vam casar.

And then just as the woodwind tenora sounds, 
shepherds and stars lost beyond the hills, 
the Virgin and You all alone at the Single Hour, a
and who knows who will hear the royal horns, 
I shall come, having changed my clothes, beside my wife,
dressed as we were when we married.

J.V. Foix

El Port de la Selva, Christmas 1948

Onze Nadals i un Cap d'Any