Photograph by Bill Doyle 

PEARSE HUTCHINSON (Glasgow in 1927, Dublin 2012) was born to Irish parents. He moved to Dublin in 1932 and was educated at Synge Street and University College, Dublin. The Dolmen Press published his first collections, Tongue without Hands (1963) and Expansions (1969). For the past forty years, his work has been published by The Gallery Press; his work includes, Watching the Morning Grow (1972), The Frost is All Over (1975), Selected Poems (1980), Climbing the Light (1985), The Soul that Kissed the Body (1990), Barnsley main Seam (1995), Collected Poems (2002), Done into English (2003) and At Least For A While (2008). Pearse Hutchinson Was the co-editor of Cyphers and a member of Aosdána. His first publication in Spanish, under the title Distorsiones: Seleccción poética, was published in 2012, and translated by Jorge R. G. Sagastume in consultation with the author. The poems appearing here are part of the latter and were published bilingually in Sirena: Poetry, Art and Criticism in 2010.  

Distortions

What a surprise you got –

ageing yourself and using

sexagenarians calmly

as mirrors

not really distorting

but merely prophetic

and so much more reliable

than the glass in the bathroom

that gets the sun in the morning

or the one in the hall

that never gets any at all –

What a surprise you got

when one reliable mirror,

who knew himself 60 not 40

so could not need you as a mirror,

thought you were flesh not glass

human not mineral

and therefore unbreakable,

and not recognizing

himself as a mirror

in your extravagant sense

proceeded to treat you

like a toy, like a brother,

and though you were flesh not glass

you broke, and bled,

not sand or calcium either

nor dull red lead –

so how surprised you felt

assembling yourself on the pavement

flesh not glass

watching his creased nape

moving away, calmly,

as if it had never seen

itself in a flower, a child,

or another old man.

The Lost Garden

I spoke to her as one child to another,

as the child I was                                    

                              to the child she is,

as the child I remember, who is, remembering,

still here.

And, in part, she understood me.

As I, in part only,

understand.

I spoke to the child she still is,

and also, perhaps, to the woman she'll soon become.

I spoke to the child who plays in the garden I grew up in,

am not, now, allowed to enter;

can still – still –

watch.

Oh I spoke to the sweet-natured girl who can play there

to her heart's content,

for a while yet.

I spoke to the child,

in the mind only.