In the air

On the way up the Vatnajökull glacier in Island’s Skaftafell National Park

Spread-out clothes have a special magnetism on any photographer. Throughout our post we have instinctively collected a large number of images of clothes spread out on balconies, patios and alleys of the places we know. We have realized this strange attraction when the Spreading-Out Blog by Zsófi Porkoláb did us the honor of linking one of our posts. And at the same time we also realized how this topic, exactly because of this magnetism, is menaced by trivialism.

Heimaey, in the Vestman Islands, about which we will soon tell a story.

What is not trivial, instead, is to spread out clothes in Island. There, in early August we could only catch these few images.

Just at the entrance of the beach of black pebbles, where the famous basalt columns of Reynisdrangar raise, a few kilometers from Vík. In the background, the glacier of Mýrdal.

Heimaey

Heimaey. The inheritance of the national hero Eiður Guðjohnsen is the hallmark of the line.

Heimaey

This farm near Höfn, south of Iceland, was the home of a fisherman. After his death, his sons found another function for the old nets, buoys, floats and whalebones. Note the prominence of the trunks and branches in a land where there are hardly any trees.




What would this song be like if it were written by an Icelandic singer instead of the Catalan Feliu Formosa?


Hèctor Vila: «Cançó de la roba estesa» (Song of the spread-out clothes). From the CD Port d’amour.

La roba estesa

de la gent pobra,
als patis foscos
i als descampats
coneix l’angoixa

dels dies grisos,
sap l’enyorança
del temps gastat.

Roba cosida
en nits de vetlla,
roba comprada
als encants vells,
roba tenyida
de color negre,

roba arreglada

d’algun parent.
Roba donada
per la gent rica,
roba pispada
d’algun terrat,
roba perduda
i retrobada,
roba heretada
dels avantnats.
hanging clothes
of poor people
in dark patios
in empty lots
they know the anguish
of the gray days
the longing for
the time lost
clothes sewn
in sleepless nights
clothes purchased
in the flea market
clothes of color
black spread out
clothes seized
by a relative
clothes ceded
by rich people
clothes swipe off
from some terrace
clothes lost
and found again
clothes inherited
from the ancestors
Roba enterrada
i ressuscitada,
roba menjada
pels detergents,
roba sargida
i apedaçada,
roba bufada

per tots els vents.
Roba bandera
de causa inútil,
roba cansada
de treballar,
roba que plora

sobre els qui passen,
roba que crida
pels seus forats.
Als patis foscos
dels barris pobres
la roba estesa

va degotant,
coneix l’angoixa
dels dies grisos,
sap l’enyorança

del temps gastat.
clothes buried
and resuscited
clothes eaten up
by detergents
clothes patched
mended and sewn
clothes fanned
in all the winds
clothes, flags
of useless causes
clothes, tired
of working any more
clothes weeping
on the passers-by
clothes screaming
through their holes
in the dark patios
of poor neighborhoods
the hanging clothes
are dripping
they know the anguish
of the gray days
the longing for
the time lost

1 comentario:

Effe dijo...

Have you found out some Halldor Laxness characters' fingerprints, among those spreadout clothes?