Lídia Jorge

Trans. by Margaret Jull COsta

The Gentle Guard

We are heading for that brightly lit house,
with no lantern to light our way. Sometimes, often,
we will sing.

It will be a land covered in bones
but they will never be our bones.
There someone will sow
weeds, but they 
will never be my weeds.

Besides, an angel will always appear
to stand gentle
guard over us—with, in one hand, a heart,
in the other a sword. When the time comes,
she will give us a horse and the secret
of how to ride it.

We are heading for that brightly lit house, with no lantern
to pierce the darkness. What a prodigiously dark night
the future is.

Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for over thirty years and has translated such writers as Eça de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago, Javier Marías and Bernardo Atxaga. In 2013 she was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2014 was made an OBE for services to literature. 

Lídia Jorge is one of Portugal’s foremost writers. She has written eleven novels, two children’s books, five short story collections, and, in 2019, a book of poems. Her work has brought her many prizes, most recently, the 2020 Premio de la Feria del Libro de Guadalajara for writers in Romance languages.