Fleur Adcock - mi tía abuela perdida

Acabo de descubrir a un pariente lejano, quien además es poeta. A que nos parecemos? Recuerdo que mi abuela contaba historias de una tía suya: "She got married and moved to New Zealand, and no one ever saw her again. Of course that's what it was like in those days." La idea de un pariente perdido en Nueva Zelanda me ha intrigado muchísimo desde entonces. Quizá Fleur Adcock sea la hija de esa señora huidiza. Claro que mi abuela se apellidaba Johnson... pero aún así! Debe haber alguna conección! Chequen cómo la describen las Feminist Writers: "Adcock is often referred to as "the expatriate poet" because her life has been split between New Zealand and England, both countries claiming her as their own. "The awareness of the split in her life makes Adcock concentrate on the present, leading to rich description and clear imagery. She often focuses on particular places, immediate and concrete, to suggest that which is missing, using the present landscape as a backdrop for the 'receding pictures' it emotionally evokes".

Acá les dejo un poema de mi querida tía abuela.

A SURPRISE IN THE PENINSULA



When I came in that night I found
the skin of a dog stretched flat and
nailed upon my wall between the
two windows. It seemed freshly killed –
there was blood at the edges. Not
my dog: I have never owned one,
I rather dislike them. (Perhaps
whoever did it knew that.) It
was a light brown dog, with smooth hair;
no head, but the tail still remained.
On the flat surface of the pelt
was branded the outline of the
peninsula, singed in thick black
strokes into the fur: a coarse map.
The position of the town was
marked by a bullet-hole, it went
right through the wall. I placed my eye
to it, and could see the dark trees
outside the house, flecked with moonlight.
I locked the door the, and sat up
all night, drinking small cups of the
bitter local coffee. A dog
would have been useful, I thought, for
protection. But perhaps the one
I had been given performed that
function; for no one came that night,
not for three more. On the fourth day
it was time to leave. The dog-skin
still hung on the wall, stiff and dry
by now, the flies and the smell gone.
Could it, I wondered, have been meant
not as a warning, but a gift?
And, scarcely shuddering, I drew
the nails out and took it with me.