The New Normal
translated from the Catalan by AKaiser
We will sink our feet into other sands,
in the new normal. We will grow plants
between our toes, in the new normal.
We will laugh at the distances
and it will be forbidden to not touch us,
in the new normal.
Our calendars will seem strange
and we won’t know what the rules are,
in the new normal.
There’ll be caves
and space for everyone.
There’ll be lichens
and hunger well-whetted.
We’ll embrace all the mysteries,
we’ll be lovers of the invisible
and death, death
will be quite bearable.
When winter comes
the mud will come and with the mud
creation unleashed
and we will draw the whole holy day,
in the new normal.
We’ll yank flowers from the rocks
and let pigment run
and we’ll paint our faces, also our thighs,
also our sexes and the hot thing, too.
We’ll look at the sky more than anything else,
in the new normal.
We will breathe very slowly,
in the new normal.
And who knows if the gods won’t find us
and we’ll have to create new altars with twigs
and make a roaring fire and roast fish
and dance barefoot until it hurts.
Pain not in the feet, but in our bellies,
from so much inconsumable joy.
La nova normalitat
Enfonsarem els peus en una altra sorra,
a la nova normalitat. Ens creixeran plantes
entre els dits, a la nova normalitat.
Ens riurem de les distàncies
i estarà prohibit no tocar-nos,
a la nova normalitat.
Se’ns faran estranys els calendaris
i no sabrem què són les restriccions,
a la nova normalitat.
Hi haurà coves
i espai per a totes.
Hi haurà líquens
i la fam ben oberta.
Abraçarem tots els misteris,
estarem amatents a l’invisible
i la mort, la mort
serà ben suportable.
Quan vingui l’hivern
vindrà el fang i amb el fang
la creació desfermada
i dibuixarem tot el sant dia,
a la nova normalitat.
Picarem les flors damunt les roques
perquè deixin anar el pigment
i ens pintarem les cares, també les cuixes,
també els sexes i allò calent.
Mirarem el cel més que cap altra cosa,
a la nova normalitat.
Respirarem molt lentament,
a la nova normalitat.
I qui sap si els déus no ens troben
i hem de crear nous altars amb branquillons
i fer un bon foc i torrar-hi peixos
i dansar descalços fins que ens faci mal.
Mal no als peus, sinó al ventre,
de tanta alegria que no sabrem com pair.
Copyright © 2026 by Anna Gual, translated by AKaiser. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 17, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I wrote this poem during the COVID pandemic, when the phrase "the new normal" came to define a future shaped by fear and distance. I wanted to imagine another possibility. Rather than returning to what we once called normal, the poem dreams of a world rebuilt through touch, ritual, slowness, and a renewed intimacy with the living. It is less a vision of the future than an act of hope: an attempt to imagine what kind of humanity might emerge after catastrophe.”
—Anna Gual
“‘The New Normal’ is part of Anna Gual’s collection, Les ocultacions, winner of the Miquel de Palol Prize, and part of my manuscript-in-translation, ’Hidden Things.’ Few of us, it seems, weren’t bombarded by the omnipresent phrase ‘the new normal’ during the pandemic. This poem, and its tremendous energy to which I hope I do justice, proposes a new new normal: a new sacred, a new profane. A world where we ourselves are elemental, where touch is obligatory, not suspect; where gods can’t find us since we (might) have realized our own sole, and shared, holiness.”
—AKaiser
Anna Gual
