THE STREET OF THE GARGOYLES

 

Along the street known as the gargoyles

the trodden smell of myrtle ascends

faces arise from the stones

in dyads, in triads:

a joyful homage to the number,

obscure meaning of precision,

the serpent coils around the alabaster

evil on Eve´s eyebrow

or vivifying like the image of the Hermes Trismegistus

three times master,

and to the stars in the sky the shield unites

three half moons.

The lion keeps watch and from its mouth dools light.

Nature knows what the stone silences.

Iniciació a la química (Initiation to chemistry), 1996

Translated by Núria Cohen.

(Palma, 1953). Àngel Terron is a scientist and poet. He combines his writing with the post of Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of the Balearic Islands. He has been the editor and co-editor of different magazines such as Blanc d´ou and Poetry and Sons as well as poetry collections, among them, Tafal. His poetic oeuvre is a blend of art and science, a career on which he embarked in 1977 with Iniciació a la química, followed by Ternari (1986), Sons nets (2004)  or Els noms del cervell (2013).