A Fox in snow

 

A Fox in snow
as stopped 

as the silence after a crash

(...)

Leslie Philibert

Gavin H. Thomas

An Infinite Storm of Beauty

I do not mean to scare you, but there’s winter in my bones- And when life gets too heavy, you can hear my glaciers groan. Sometimes I don’t go out, because my heart has been snowed in- And it doesn’t take too much, for avalanches to begin. But do not get me wrong, there’s beauty in the endless white- the ice along my lashes helps reflect back all the light. And it’s easy to find magic, skating on the frozen lakes, or in sticking out your tongue to catch the softly falling flakes. The forest floor is freezing, but the trees are wearing coats- And I’ve seen the whistling wind, wearing a scarf around his throat. So do not waste your worry on all my blizzards and storms- I’ve got my own internal flame, that always keeps me nice and warm.

- “The Winter Within” by Erin Hanson

from, 'Infinite Storm'

Líquenes

Líquenes



I

Algures,

no lugar

mais frio

da memória,

mas

nítido

como um centímetro

quadrado de neve

que pede

a própria luz

à algidez interior,

surge

a paisagem

de líquenes,




II

o lento trabalho

da metamorfose

entre a alga

e a campânula

venenosa

do míscaro

[protosponja

que se embebe

nas grutas,

na sombra ácida],

o sono

criptogâmico

incapaz de sonhar

a forma duma flor




III

mesmo

sobre a nitidez

vitrificada tão

intensamente

pela memória

que parece provir

da infra-infância

o súbito

centímetro quadrado

de neve e luz

onde os líquenes surgem

agora

monomicro-

criptomaníacos,




IV

meticulosos

na humidade

que fabricam

di

luin

do-se nela,

e ela

por sua vez

segrega-os

devagar

em cada

exalação

[sempre mais

do que eram]




V

tão semelhante

na escala

deste livro

a respiração [?]

minuciosa

do lodo

produzindo

não flores

mais lodo,

sono também

sem sonho

alastrando

na transparência

da água:




VI

assim

se cumpre

o eclipse

gradual

sobre o centímetro

quadrado que

os líquenes

cobrem

na memória,

assim

a luz e a neve

se ocultam

pouco a pouco, assim

se esquece.




© 1968, Carlos de Oliveira

From: Trabalho Poético

Publisher: Assírio & Alvim, Lisboa, 2003

ISBN: 972-37-0801-9

imagens de Jocelyn Rosario

Poetas escolhem poemas

CATHERINE BARNETT
ENVOY


I was trying to look a little less like myself
and more like other humans,


humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.
Purchased in another life, when I had a husband


and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,
the skort even had its own little pocket,


and the fingerprint stains yellowing the fabric
were almost invisible, nothing to be ashamed of


as I walked past homes and faces
with their welcome signs and their no-trespassing signs.

I was hoping to look domesticated,
or at least domesticable,


that I too could walk the trails
and then return home, stretch out


beside another human and watch something
on a big screen until it was time to sleep.


I too had veins at my wrist,
and I'd read Maslow,


with his hierarchy of needs.
I remembered that love and belonging


were pretty basic, and that at the top
of the pyramid was transcendence.


Late that night I took off the skort
and lay down on the kitchen floor of a house


where years ago a boy and his girlfriend
overdosed in the basement, a fact


I try not to remember.
There used to be a cross staked outside,


beneath the blue spruce that died
when the place was abandoned.


Because I am afraid,
I left the outside light on.


Halogen burns hot, so bright
it must have stunned the imperial moth


shimmering against the window screen.
Most moths would rather spin around lights


than mate, which is all they are put here to do,
and sometimes they just tire themselves out


flying at night. This one was disguised
as an autumn leaf, though it was only midsummer.


Size of my hand.
As much enigma as legerdemain,


very temporary,
at most she would live a week.


Something about the way she waited there,
wings outstretched, still as a flat lichened stone,


made me want to rescue my copy of Maslow
from the basement and study the hierarchy again.


In the diagram I saw sex at the very bottom--
along with eating, drinking, sleeping.


I wondered if that meant it was foundational,
or optional. The moth, vibrating there


in the circle of light, seemed to be choosing
transcendence over other basic needs.


Imperial moths have no mouthparts,
they don't eat, they make no sound.


In the morning, I buried her
under the ghost spruce as cars sped by.


Before I tossed the dirt back
over the shallow hole, I took a photo,


to prove there really was such a thing
as an imperial moth.


To prove she wasn't alone.
Wings made of iridescent chitin


arranged to look like leaf litter,
in the dirt she glowed a little.

(chosen by –Steven Kleinman, author of Life Cycle of a Bear)

“Who says that all must vanish?"

 

“Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows, perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
and perhaps flowers survive
caresses in us, in their ground.
It isn't the gesture that lasts,
but it dresses you again in gold
armor —from breast to knees—
and the battle was so pure
an Angel wears it after you.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke, "What Survives" From The Complete French Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, Jr. (2002)

"My name is Ozymandias"

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)

--------------------------
Tradução

Encontrei um viajante vindo de uma antiga terra
Que me disse: — Duas imensas e destroncadas pernas de pedra
Erguem-se no deserto. Perto delas, sobre a areia
Meio enterrado, jaz um rosto despedaçado, cujo cenho
Com lábio enrugado e sorriso de frio comando
Dizem que seu escultor soube ler bem suas paixões
Que ainda sobrevivem, estampadas nessas coisas sem vida,
A mão que os escarneceu e o coração que os alimentou
E no pedestal aparecem estas palavras:
"Meu nome é Ozymandias, rei dos reis:
Contemplai as minhas obras, ó poderosos e desesperai-vos!"
Nada mais resta: em redor da decadência
Daquele destroço colossal, ilimitado e vazio
Espalham-se para longe as areias solitárias.

Dust of Snow

 

Dust of Snow

by Robert Frost

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

Winter Morning by Joseph Farquharson (1846–1935)

Beba poesia sem moderação

 

“We Alone”

 

We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.

Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.

This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what is scarce.

by Alice Walker

Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

 

Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

By Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

bright streets at lonely lights

 

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.

Ted Kooser

Quando está frio no tempo do frio

 

Quando está frio no tempo do frio, para mim é como se estivesse agradável,

Porque para o meu ser adequado à existência das coisas

O natural é o agradável só por ser natural.

Alberto Caeiro

Sari Pajari in Tampere, Finland

Para todos os que precisam de inspiração e coragem

 

Torrilla · Invictus

A música é a poesia da alma

vvuusseerr · Tom Rosenthal - Lights are on (INSTRUMENTAL)

'For nothing now can ever come to any good'

HiddlestonersArgentina · 'Funeral Blues' (De W.H.Auden )- Tom Hiddleston

As Artes Florescentes

 

An illustration for Goethe's poem "Erlkönig", pen on paper (A4). Extra credit in hell for those who can trace the Devil.

Na'ama Shulman

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?

The father it is, with his infant so dear;

He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,

He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?

Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!

Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?

My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain.

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!

For many a game, I will play there with thee;

On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,

My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

My father, my father, and dost thou not hear

The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?

Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;

'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves.

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?

My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;

My daughters by night their glad festival keep,

They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

My father, my father, and dost thou not see,

How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?

My darling, my darling, I see it aright,

'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight.

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!

And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."

My father, my father, he seizes me fast,

For sorely, the Erl-King has hurt me at last.

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,

He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;

He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,

The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

Goethe

(Edgar Alfred Bowring's translation)

***

A história do Erlkönig deriva da tradicional balada dinamarquesa Elveskud: O poema de Goethe foi inspirado na tradução de Johann Gottfried Herder de uma variante da balada (Danmarks gamle Folkeviser 47B, da edição de 1695 de Peter Syv) para alemão como Erlkönigs Tochter (“A Filha do Rei Erl”) na sua colecção de canções populares, Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (publicada em 1778).

O poema de Goethe, por sua vez, inspirou o jovem Schubert, que o musicou.

"a rain shadow doesn't always bring misery"

 

This weeping apparition hides my eyes and tears
For shadows I will never see again.
Past the light, my shadow proceeds before me growing tallerwith each soggy, aching step,
Until the dark consumes my empty spirit
Passing in the night.

   

             ~Tim Seigel

By Friedrich Kunath

Les femmes de la côte

 

Les femmes de la côte

restent sauvages.

Les hommes chantent

conduisent des chaloupes et parlent

de l’allure des vagues;

les femmes de la côte peignent et

savent réparer des skidoos

elles ont le sang salé

la nuit elles dansent

et font le ciel.



Les femmes de la côte

n’appartiennent qu’à une idée.

Elles vont, flottantes

elles sont le bout du monde.

            Andréane Frenette-Vallières

Résister

 

As coisas belas, por que motivo serão belas? E belas para quê?

 

As coisas belas,

As que deixam cicatrizes na memória dos homens,

Por que motivo serão belas?

E belas para quê

(...)

António Gedeão

Photo by: Lurdes Santander