HILARY ELFICK

Humans are not proud

 

Humans are not proud of their ancestors
and rarely invite them round to dinner – Douglas Adams

Not proud? Oh I am proud. I’m sitting here
at this old ink-marked desk because,
against all the odds, they all came through,

surviving what? A Huguenot massacre,
a flooded harvest; tuberculosis,
and so many stillbirths before my

own line was assured; the crabbed crone
from Edinburgh whose skirt stank of urine,
but when the soldiers came, knew where to hide;

my grandfather, struggling to breathe
beside a stinking glue pot on the stove,
working pigskin, making purses for the rich to fill;

then Dad in Home Guard uniform, defending
Birmingham with a wooden rifle,
my mother, beating polio into recession

so she could bear her four forbidden children,
even the smuggler hanged in Lowestoft,
but not before he’d sired the crucial girl;

and best of all, the son of Stirling, oh
yes, that man’s name still cuts the mustard here:
citizen and soldier. Town Crier. Father of two.

Roxana-Monica Mîndrican

Hilary Elfick
 

Oamenii nu-s mandri

Oamenii nu-s mandri de stramosii lor
si rareori ii invita la cina- Douglas Adams

Nu sunt eu mandru ? Ba din contra. Stau aici,
la acest birou vechi, patat de cerneala pentru ca
ei au rezistat atator clipe grele

supravietuind masacrului hughenot,
inundatiilor, tuberculozei,
si atator sarcini pierdute

inainte de nasterea mea; batrana ursuza
din Edinburg cu fusta-i duhnind a urina,
dar a stiut sa se ascunda cand au venit soldatii ;

bunicul meu tinandu-si respiratia
langa oala cu lipici ce duhneste pe plita
facea portofele din piele de porc sa le umple bogatii

apoi tata in uniforma-i de garda, strajuia
palatul Birmingham cu o pusca de lemn,
iar mama se lupta cu poliomielita.
a purtat in pantec patru bastarzi,
chiar si contrabandistul spanzurat la Lowestoft,
dar nu inainte de a zamisli* o fica ;

si cel mai de soi dintre toti, fiul lui Stirling,
numele lui inca rasuna* aici :
soldati, cetateni. Pristavul orasului. Tata a doi fii.

*a zamisli= a procrea, a naste ( to give birth, to procreate), I prefered « a zamisli » instead of « a naste »(to give birth), which is too neutral, because « a zamisli » is more archaic and more in agreement with the topic of the poem- which is about « ancestors », therefore we need to use an adequate vocabulary.

*to cut the mustard= informal expresion-to be good enough to do something. I chose to translate « cuts the mustard » by « rasuna », because in Romanian « numele lui rasuna » it’s also informal and keeps both the meaning and the ironic connotations of the verbal expression « to cut the mustrad « .