que isto seja esquecido

Because what I want most is permanence,
The long unwinding and continuous flow
Of subterranean rivers out of sense,
That nourish arid landscapes with their blue– Poetry, prayer, or call it what you choose That frees the complicated act of will And makes the whole world both intense and still– I set my mind to artful work and craft, I set my heart on friendship, hard and fast Against the wild inflaming wink of chance And all sensations opend in a glance.
Oh blue Atlantis where the sailors dream Their girls under the waves and in the foam– I move another course. I’ll not look down.

Because what I most want is permanence,
What I do best is bury fire now,
To bank the blaze within, and out of sense, Where hidden fires and rivers burn and flow, Create a world that is still and intense.
I come to you with only the straight gaze.
These are not hours of fire but years of praise, The glass full to the brim, completely full, But held in balance so no drop can spill.

Há umas semanas procurei insistentemente um dos poemas de May Sarton. Impossível. Não consegui encontrar.

Decidi enviar um email à Joy, Wanderings of a Student Librarian, perguntando se ela me poderia enviar o poema por email. Ela pode. Ontem.
Sorry it took me so long. Here is the poem as copied from _The Land of Silence and Other Poems_ by May Sarton, Rinehart & Co., New York, 1953.

Thank you Joy. No insights on the poem. Yet.
Maybe someday.

Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before–”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

May Sarton

No meio dos vários livros, todos com um intenso cheiro a mofo, que existem no quarto que estou a ocupar, encontrei “A Casa da Rússia”, de John le Carré, que comecei a ler. Na verdade, parei na primeira página.

Temos de pensar como heróis para nos comportarmos como seres minimamente decentes. (May Sarton)

O Jardim dos Namorados ajuda a arejar, não só o livro. Quem será que começou com a mania da citação no início dos livros? Herói? A grande humanidade do herói está no anti-herói, mas, esquecem-se. May Sarton, aqui não há heróis, só super-guerreiros. O herói ganha as batalhas, mas o super-guerreiro é que comanda. Fazem o mesmo caminho, mas em cavalos diferentes, e a batalha, qualquer que ela seja, faz-se com cavalos. Resta saber quem, montado no seu cavalo alado branco, chega ao castelo, escapa do dragão, salva a princesa. Herói ou Super-Guerreiro?

Qualquer que seja o livro da minha vida, a citação será a de Ávaro de Campos.

vou atirar uma bomba ao destino

Faz sentido, Carolina?