Return to Cardiff

By Danny Abse

„Hometown”; well, most admit an affection for a city:
grey, tangled streets I cycled on to school, my first cigarette
in the back lane, and, fool, my first botched love affair.
First everything. Faded torments; self-indulgent pity.

The journey to Cardiff seemed less a return than a raid
on mislaid identities. Of course the whole locus smaller:
the mile-wide Taff now a stream, the castle not as in some black,
gothic dream, but a decent sprawl, a joker’s toy facade.

Unfocused voices in the wind, asssociations, clues,
Odds and ends, fringes caught, as when, after the doctor quit,
A door opened and I glimpsed the white, enormous face
Of my grandfather, suddenly aghast with certain news.

Unable to define anything I can hardly speak,
and still I love the place for what I wanted it to be
as much as for what it unashamedly is
now for me, a city of strangers, alien and bleak.

Unable to communicate I’m easily betrayed,
uneasily diverted by mere sense reflections
like those anchored waterscapes that wander, alter, in the Taff,
hour by hour, as light slants down a different shade.

Illusory, too, that lost dark playground after rain,
the noise of trams, gunshots in what they once called Tiger Bay.
Only real this smell of ripe, damp earth when the sun comes out,
a mixture of pungencies, half exquisite and half plain.

No sooner than I’d arrived the other Cardiff had gone,
smoke in the memory, these but tinned resemblances,
where the boy I was not and the man I am not
met, hesitated, left double footsteps, then walked on.

Inapoi in Cardiff

"Oras de bastina"; ei bine, multi se simt atasati de cate un oras:
strazi gri, intortocheate pe care ma plimbam cu bicla spre scoala, primul meu fum
din strada laturalnica si, prostul de mine, prima mea partida.
Primele nazbatii. Frustrari inabusite; auto-compatimire.

Drumul spre Cardiff parea mai mult un atac asupra mastilor pierdute
decat o revenire. Desigur, totul mai mic era:
Taff-ul lat de-o mila era acum parau, castelul – refuzatul unui intunecat
Si gotic vis, casoi anost, fatada de joc de clovn.

Vorbe goale-n vant, legaturi, indicii,
inadvertente si stramtorari, stop-cadru, atunci cand doctorul renunta,
o usa se deschise si zarii imensa fata alba
a bunicului meu, deodata-ngrozita de vesti sigure.

Nu-mi pot explica nimic, de-abia mai vorbesc,
si inca iubesc locul pentru ceea ce am vrut sa fie
asa cum il iubesc pentru cat de neprefacut este
acum pentru mine, oras de straini, de nerecunoscut si sters.

Nu pot vorbi – de aceea sunt tradat,
de neurnit de catre reflexii-nfime ale simturilor
precum fluidele forme ancorate ce vagabondeaza, alterandu-se pe Taff,
ora de ora, in vreme ce lumina coboara o umbra noua.

Ca o naluca mi-a parut si parcul cu leagane intunecat dupa ploaie,
larma tramvaielor, focuri de arma din Tiger Bay, cum ii ziceau odata.
Crezare numai acestui miros de pamant roditor si umed la soare,
amestec de esente tari, rafinate si vulgare.

Nici n-am ajuns bine ca al doilea Cardiff plecase,
memoria tulbure, numai asemanari zanganitoare,
unde baiatul care nu fusesem si barbatul care nu sunt
s-au intalnit, au sovait, au lasat doua perechi de urme, si au mers mai departe

Translated by Nicolae-Andrei Popa