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sejamos como se fôramos

num mundo que fosse: o Mundo.

MAKE-BELIEVE LULLABY

The world’s not worth the world,

my love.

I planted a sleep tree, and up

came twenty rosebushes.

If I cut myself on them all

and if all of them were stained

by a hazy blood issued

at the whim of the thorns,

it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

The world,

my love,

isn’t worth

our trouble, nor is an untroubled

face worth more than a pained one.

I learned long ago to laugh,

at what? At me? At nothing?

The world, worth nothing, isn’t valid.

Like the shadow in the valley,

life descends … and if some

sound rises out of that depth,

it’s not the shepherd’s shout

rounding up his sheep.

It’s not a flute or a chant

of disenchanted love.

It’s not a cricket’s sigh,

or the nighttime voice of streams,

or a mother calling her son.

It’s not the hiss of serpents

so entranced in the moonlight

they forget about biting.

It’s not a boy crying

for a man to take shape.

Nor is it the breathing

of soldiers or the sick,

of children in boarding schools

or nuns walled up in convents.

It’s not groups that, submersed

in the glaciers of half-sleep,

let themselves slip away,

less than a simple word,

less than an autumn leaf,

the particle of sound

that life contains, and death

contains, the barest record

of concentrated energy.

It’s not this, or anything.

It’s sound before music,

it’s what remains from non-

encounters, chance encounters,

mis-encounters, from mirages

that condense or dissolve

into other absurd representations.

The world has no meaning.

The world and its most moving

songs are still, and the speech

we suddenly hear

from the next room

is silence making an echo

and returning to being silence

in the all-surrounding darkness.

Silence: what is it saying?

What does the world say?

The world, my love, is sealed,

if it isn’t simply empty.

The world is perhaps. Period.

Perhaps it’s not even perhaps.

The world’s not worth our trouble,

but trouble doesn’t exist.

Let’s make believe, my love,

that we suffer and forget,

remember and enjoy,

select our memories

and unselect them whenever

they remember too much in us.

My love, let’s make believe

— but the believed doesn’t exist—

that everything’s as if it were,

or that, if it was, it wasn’t.

Let’s use words, my love.

Let’s make worlds: ideas.

Let’s leave the world to others,

since they want to consume it.

My love, let’s summon our strength

— but strength doesn’t exist—

and in the purest lie

of this self-belying world

let’s fashion our own image,

more illusory than anything,

since what could be more false

than to fancy oneself alive,

as if a dream could give us

the pleasure we dream of?

But the dream doesn’t exist.

And thus, my love, completely

awake, clear-minded, severe,

or with complete abandon,

letting ourselves wander

in the palm of time

— but time doesn’t exist —

let’s act as if we were

in a world that could be: the World.

PERGUNTAS

Numa incerta hora fria

perguntei ao fantasma

que força nos prendia,

ele a mim, que presumo

estar livre de tudo,

eu a ele, gasoso,

todavia palpável

na sombra que projeta

sobre meu ser inteiro:

um ao outro, cativos

desse mesmo princípio

ou desse mesmo enigma

que distrai ou concentra

e renova e matiza,

prolongando-a no espaço,

uma angústia do tempo.

Perguntei-lhe em seguida

o segredo de nosso

convívio sem contato,

de estarmos ali quedos,

eu em face do espelho,

e o espelho devolvendo

uma diversa imagem,

mas sempre evocativa

do primeiro retrato

que compõe de si mesma

a alma predestinada

a um tipo de aventura

terrestre, cotidiana.

Perguntei-lhe depois

por que tanto insistia

nos mares mais exíguos

em distribuir navios

desse calado irreal,

sem rota ou pensamento

de atingir qualquer porto,

propícios a naufrágio

mais que a navegação;

nos frios alcantis

de meu serro natal,

desde muito derruído,

em acordar memórias

de vaqueiros e vozes,

magras reses, caminhos

onde a bosta de vaca

é o único ornamento,

e o coqueiro-de-espinho

desolado se alteia.

Perguntei-lhe por fim

a razão sem razão

de me inclinar aflito

sobre restos de restos,

de onde nenhum alento

vem refrescar a febre

deste repensamento;

sobre esse chão de ruínas

imóveis, militares

na sua rigidez

que o orvalho matutino

já não banha ou conforta.

No voo que desfere,

silente e melancólico,

rumo da eternidade,

ele apenas responde

(se acaso é responder

a mistérios, somar-lhes

um mistério mais alto):

Amar, depois de perder.

QUESTIONS

One cold, uncertain hour

I asked the ghost

what force binds us,

him to me, whom I think of

as not bound to anything,

and me to him, gaseous

yet vividly felt

in the shadow he casts

over all my being:

reciprocal captives

of the same principle

(or the same enigma)

that distracts or focuses

and renews and refines

an anxiety of time,

prolonging it in space.

Next I asked him

the secret of our

intimacy without contact,

our quiet colloquy,

me facing the mirror

and the mirror returning

a likeness that’s different

yet always reminiscent

of the first image

a soul conceives for itself

when predestined to live

an earthly, everyday

sort of adventure.

Then I asked him

why he so insists

on such tiny seas,

on launching ships

with unreal hulls,

with no route or idea

of reaching any port,

ships fit for shipwreck

more than sailing;

why he insists on the cold

crags of the long-toppled

mountains of my childhood,

on arousing old memories

of cowherds, voices,

scrawny livestock, paths

where cow dung

was the only adornment,

and the desolate macaw palm

reigned tall.