Olhares

Artur Pastor (Série “De volta à cidade de Lisboa”. Alfama, décadas de 50/70), visto aqui.

Olhares

George Shiras III, National Geographic, July 1906

Mesmo na ruína

Não é a primeira vez que o digo, mas repito: o que me atrai não é um voyeurismo das ruínas; são os vestígios de vida, a luz sempre incomparável destes lugares, e a ideia de achar tesouros onde outros talvez só vejam ruínas e lixo; neste sentido são também uma forma de auto-retrato, porque são efabulações, obstinação em ver (criar?) mais do que talvez lá esteja realmente, e em ser agente dessa criação. E são pequenas epifanias pessoais, momentos de alívio e triunfo silencioso mas radiante, em cada porta finalmente aberta, cada nova sala descoberta depois de um lanço de escadas podre, em cada imagem que me prova que o fio de significado ainda não se quebrou, e que é possível segui-lo mesmo pelo meio da ruína.

Insónias e rosas

Insónias e rosas

Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled -
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing -
that the light is everything - that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

The Ponds (itálicos meus)

Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

In Blackwater Woods

Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.

How I go to the woods

Aos trinta e cinco

Trinta e cinco

Espreitar quintais

*

a biblioteca

de perto

a Casa do Forno

o palheiro

o galinheiro

o armário dos queijos

Que saudades de ver a minha Avó ordenhar as cabras e fazer os queijos, de observar os seus movimentos lentos e seguros. Lembro-me dela sempre que fotografo o armário onde os queijos ficavam a curar, e onde agora se acumulam objectos esquecidos, alguidares, facas velhas, um frasco de Brasa com favas secas, canecos velhos de alumínio. Tralha ou tesouros? Um pouco e de ambos, provavelmente. E nunca mais comi queijo que me soubesse como aquele.

*Para 2019*

Pergulho | Janeiro 2007