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.