Ana Luísa Amaral

trans. by Margaret jull costa

symptoms and syndromes

Spring-on-repeat syndrome. There 
they are again, those intruders on the 
morning. They won’t let me think. 
The cat wants to go out, trembling 
at the sight of them perched on the 
branches, singing. I need to think. 
Silence as syndrome. Wood creak-
ing, time tolling, it’s half past ten. 
Intruders on my sleepy thoughts. I need
air. But they’ve grown louder now
the day is up and about, they’ve grown 
in number. An opera all in blue. Wagner 
in a major key. A Ghost Ship.
How cloyingly sweet the air is. I need 
to think. But they keep singing. Singing. 
A song that doesn’t leave me a single 
branch to think on. Spring again and 
every morning the same spring 
symptoms. The cat is in a frenzy, 
trembling ever more to see them 
jump from branch to branch. It’s 
spring and they’re singing: illegal 
liaisons, the nest all abuzz. Only a 
hawk with black, fringed wings 
who has his house nearby and doesn’t 
sing. Only he would allow me to think. 
Only he could give me air to breathe, 
a roof. (And the cat still not daring 
to make the leap, but still, riveted to 
that spot by the window, revealing 
clear symptoms of delirium tre-
mens.)

Ana Luísa Amaral published her first volume of poetry, Minha Senhora de Quê, in 1990, and has since published seventeen collections. Translated into several languages, her work has brought her many prizes, including the 2008 Grande Prémio from the Portuguese Writers’ Association. She is also a translator, notably of the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the sonnets of William Shakespeare. A collection of her poetry, What’s in a Name, was published by New Directions in 2019. 

Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for over thirty years and has translated works by novelists and poets such as Eça de Queiroz, José Saramago, Javier Marías, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, and Ana Luísa Amaral. In 2013 she was invited to become a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2014 was awarded an OBE for services to literature.