THE VOICE THAT EMIGRATED / The Cats of the Lamppost in the Park (The Scaffold - Pikota)

As if they were escaping

The wandering swallows
Are like a quiet Babel without language
They go towards the sea
Flying among clouds

To Juan de Beriain and Michel Labéguerie
swallows of the Basque language

The Scaffold

When you say that language is dying
It is as if you said that fire is being extinguished
When I say that language is dying
It is as if I said that the lamb is dying

But fire is extinguished naturally, by itself
And the lamb, nevertheless, is sold by a Judas
It is crucified unjustly by a Pilate
And a Longinos hangman kills it

Urkabe, urkamendia... Pikota

Hizkuntza hiltzear dagoela diozunean
Sua itzaltzen ari dela diozunean bezala diozu
Hizkuntza hiltzear dagoela diodanean
Bildotsa hiltzear dagoela diodanean bezala diot
Alabaina, sua berez itzaltzen da
Bildotsa, berriz,
Iskariote batek saldu
Pilato batek bidegabekeriaz gurutziltzatu
Eta Longino borrero batek hiltzen du

The Voice that Emigrated

I write in the language of my ancestors, because that is, or better said, was the language of this bishopric, and even though my forbears may not agree about different aspects of these lectures, although I use some words that they did not at the time and other words they used are already lost and I do not know them, I write in the language that was spoken in the Head of this Kingdom, which was the majority language in our territory and the only one that was understood in all our towns.

Nowadays, this is called a"minority" language. Our neighbour’s language has swallowed us.

Emigratutako ahotsa (etxean etxegabetua)

Juan de Beriain berri bat banintz bezala,
Arbasoen hizkuntzan idazten dut.
Erresuma honetako Hiri Buruzagian hobekien hitz egin zen hizkuntzan idazten dut,
Gure herriaren gehiengoaren zen hizkuntzan,
Gure herri guztietan ulertzen zen bakarrean,
Gaur egun "gutxiengo" hizkuntza deitzen zaion honetan

The Whale and the Boat

I live in a glass house. It is very pretty but fragile, just like dreams. Then I think about the cozy shelter that Pitxitxi the cat owns beyond the sea and where all mice live peacefully.

I have met thousands of cats in the world, each speaking its own language, a foreign language like yours. They are usually mouthless cats, living in borrowed time in an unstable way.

I take my small suitcase and I close the door heading for the sea. My voice will never be silenced. It is a whale which throws water through its backhole. The boat is waiting for me. Where will it lead me to?

My paper boat does not have silver nails
It is a nutshell, a pile of logs badly tied
Through the cracks a little water leaks
Sometimes more than a little

But I am not scared, we have a wonderful sun
I am used to sailing in a voyage of blackness from the Black Sea to blacker seas
There are too many people, among the mass of human trunks
Numb by the humid wind blowing and with marine salt in my lips,

The prow can frighten anyone
But me, oh, how crazy! I cannot even swim!
If I could, really, what would that matter?
If I were a bird I would fall into the snare
If a whale,
In the net trap of the drowned bodies that water swells
If I reached the shore I would be arrested and
With the admiration of the shaky and freezing light of the prison cell
I could still be beaten to death in some barracks on the coast

The Cats of the Lamppost in the Park (Parkeko bankuko sua)

The crossing has been long but I am already here. Now I have become a cat. After travelling inside a truck, my friend Pitxitxi —a cat from my own town, and an immigrant, like me—, has offered me a place in its cathole. We are several cats of different furs and origins living in the same mousehole. This circumstance would be amusing if it was not for the lack of metaphoric adornment it supposes and the discomfort it generates. There is nothing, not even a simple decoration.

In the cat’s home you only need to worry about the daily stuff, about selling handkerchiefs and gathering at night before going to bed. We could say that it is a small international conference of forgotten voices. Nobody is really from here, from these coordinates, from these latitudes, from these parallels. We are from there. There is our hometown. We come from other shelters, other worlds, both near and far, from other denigrated languages, both vernacular and foreign. We come from other voices that our parents would sweetly whisper to us. Babel is my new house and my language, the flag of society’s outcasts.

They say I am mad, raving mad, because I walk the streets speaking aloud to myself. I am like a dumb one who, despite speaking with his glance, nobody listens to. Today I visited the city and its red tile roofs. When I reached the park it was late and I climbed to the top of the statue of the prince warrior who defeated the cats, and I saw other dumb people, natives and immigrants, and they were in a worse situation than mine. This is the truth.

I have also seen how the young subjects of the great snow-white cat felinely carried lighters and bottles full of volatile and flammable liquid in their hands. They went to silence the miaows of the cats that live under the lamppost of the park. Cats like Pitxitxi, pitchblack, but homeless, mew-mews as thin as little fingers, skinny mew-mews without sardines. Some showed the blows of previous abuse. Before them spoke the incendiary ones: "Here, there can’t be other word than our word. The voice of the fire owners. Ours is the only genuine miaow".

They will find

Neither white flowers

Nor traces

The bench that you used as a bed until yesterday

The voice you used as emigrant compass

Will be today, along with your body, fuel to the flames

But you will become the bush that burns

But is never consumed

You will be eternally on fire

As long as the word in the mouth of your people remains alive

Ez

Ez diten

Ez lili zuririk

Ez aztarnarik antzemango

Garrak harturik den hire etzaleku bankuan

Atzo arte etxerik eta iparrorratzik gabeko ahots migratzaile hintzena

Izanen haiz gaur, heure gorpuarekin batera, suarentzako sua

Erregaia garretara

Inoiz itzali eta agortu gabe

Beti kiskaltzen ari den sasi goria

Eta herriari irazekiko dion 

Eta bazterrak hire garrez erreko ditun

Euskal Herriaren beraren ahoan hitzek bizirik dirauten artean

Juan Karlos Lopez-Mugartza