Miudezas

Percorro todas as tardes um quarteirão de paredes
nuas.
Nuas e sujas de idade e ventos.
Vejo muitos rascunhos de pernas de grilos pregados
nas pedras.
As pedras, entretanto, são mais favoráveis a pernas
de moscas do que de grilos.
Pequenos caracóis deixaram suas casas pregadas
nestas pedras
E as suas lesmas saíram por aí à procura de outras
paredes.
Asas misgalhadinhas de borboletas tingem de azul
estas pedras.
Uma espécie de gosto por tais miudezas me paralisa.
Caminho todas as tardes por estes quarteirões
desertos, é certo.
Mas nunca tenho certeza
Se estou percorrendo o quarteirão deserto
Ou algum deserto em mim.

______
BARROS, Manuel de. Tratado geral das grandezas do ínfimo. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2001. p. 39.

Envoi

Be silent, old frog.
Let God compound the issue as he must,
And dog eat dog
Unto the final desecration of man’s dust.
The just will be devoured by the unjust.

______
DURRELL, Lawrence. Poemas. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1995. p. 198.

Stoic

I, a slave, chained to an oar of poem,
Inhabiting this faraway province where
Nothing happens. I wouldn’t want it to.
I have expressly deprived myself of much:
Conversation, sweets of friendship, love...
The public women of the town don’t appeal.
I wouldn’t want them to. There are no others,
At least for an old, smelly, covetous bookman.
So many things might have fed this avocation,
But what’s the point? It’s too late.

About the matter of death I am convinced,
Also that peace is unattainable and destiny
Impermeable to reason. I am lucky to have
No grave illness, I suppose, no wounds
To ache all winter. I do not drink or smoke.
From all these factors I select one, the silence
Which is that jewel of divine futility,
Refusal to bow, the unvarnished grain
Of the mind’s impudence: you see it so well
On the faces of self-reliant dead.

______
DURRELL, Lawrence. Poemas. Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 1995. p. 196.