a) Published book: Cartas de Marco Polo e outros relatos. Edicións Embora, Ferrol 2024
b) Travel writing online: Viaxes sen Lee. Ongoing publication in Galician language (2018- )
c) English translations:
Everywhere
by Gabriel Rei-Doval
Translated from Galician by Kathleen March
You left five years ago, in the leap year cold of February, taking with you the beginning of time.
When I think you’ve left, Teresita, the air turns shades of faux leather with a red floral pattern on the reverse. Today I awoke in Glendale remembering childhood evenings with the tv program Man and Earth before the greatest of all losses. Long wooden nights having supper in chairs of green tubing, sharing silent moments, empathy, and affection without end.
You came to Wisconsin twice. The first time was fifteen years ago, the second a decade. I remember the terrible fear in your expression together with the utter joy of our meeting at O’Hare on your first transatlantic flight from Barajas.
In Milwaukee you loved the flower-lined walks to North Point Lighthouse, you prayed for everyone in Holy Hill, you admired the retablos of Saint John Cathedral, and we shared a pew in Saint Stanislaus. Blessed art thou among women, dear Teresita.
Just as you told me, the trip in 2009 was your last one to America. We still would enjoy many sunsets by the lighthouse behind A Palma, the seafood marinade and clams in San Felipe, the waves of the sea by Chanteiro beach and a trip by ferry along the Ferrol estuary.
I remember your smile while you talked about the dances with Marina at Baños da Brea and the visits to O Cristo cemetery with Chicha and the strolls along the Camiño Vello, the old lane, to the lavoir in A Redonda. The trips to Galapagar too, the visit to Thyssen Museum with Manuel Ramón and your last mass in Bertamiráns.
Your sense of humor was subtle, special, genuine. On the Magnificent Mile of Chicago, I died laughing when you called Cloud Gate on Michigan Avenue ‘fala loba’ -wolf bean-, and I still smile to myself even now when I look at the well-tended gardens of Wisconsin that you liked so much.
You always spoke directly and honestly, like when you said the Geneva Lake boat was no comparison to the one in our estuary. And, finally, there’s that empathy, that other everlasting gift that, together with the true love that never dies, you left to us forever.
You lived your entire life in O Baño, you stayed in Pozuelo, and for a time in Wisconsin. But for five years now your love and your light are spread throughout the world. Now you are not only in O Cristo cemetery. Now you are everywhere.
———
The Father’s Last Lesson
by Gabriel Rei-Doval
Translated from Galician by Kathleen March
The abominable owl, as voracious as red-hot lava, devoured my earliest memories. When you left for the other side, there were no ancestors remained for me on this shore, no more war stories from Madrid, no scents from Havana, no postwar Ares.
When I left O’Hare two July eighteenths ago, I knew our next meeting in Numancia Square would be our last. Your memories had dissolved quickly since our last Christmas together in Ares. The isolation caused by the virus had become eternal, and planes had been shackled to the Earth that shelters you now. Your conviction that the sunset was drawing near had hastened my Odyssey, the return to the homeland we shared; I recognized the terror you felt at the crossing of the River Jordan you were about to undertake.
Three hundred sixty-five days ago we said farewell in that dark, windowless room in Catabois. Hours passed while you refused to dock at the wharf of that unknown country where you now reside, until the reiki of my hands rested on the sunset of your luminous body, and you no longer felt the fear of eternal sleep.
The lessons we shared during half a century were many, gentle, and profound. Some were difficult: they touched sensitive places that make the foundations of the human soul tremble and the heart shudder. They took their time, but today the puzzle is finally assembled. Pain is usually the best teacher: the need to embrace love helps ward off suffering. During my trip, I learned that the easiest path is not always the fairest one, that formal actions are never those with any depth, and that it means nothing if you’re the richest person in the cemetery. You stood by your decisions, ones only persons of great strength can maintain, with quiet coherence, something that was misunderstood by many for too long. You had the courage to forgive ignorance, you overlooked sterile arrogance and understood the differences and diversity of emotions. You listened to and understood to the same degree the man who shined shoes and the naval engineer, and held conversations with admirable loquacity, not questioning whether your interlocutor was at the level of Bourdieu.
When the owl from O Baño signaled the final departure, the last painful thorn was removed, and the father’s last lesson was revealed: forgiveness and love. Nothing more, nothing less. Your body, that had been transformed into a felled tree, became a life renewed.