o que me apraz dizer sobre os dias que correm

as if the earth under our feet
were
an excrement of some sky

and we degraded prisoners
destined
to hunger until we eat filth

Excerto de To Elsie, de William Carlos Williams. 

The Widow's Lament In Springtime

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirty five years
I lived with my husband.
the plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.


William Carlos Williams, Antologia Breve, Assírio & Alvim, 1995.

Arrival

And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom -
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind...!


William Carlos Williams, Antologia Breve, Assírio & Alvim, 1995.

These

are the desolate, dark weeks
when nature in its barreness
equals the stupidity of man

The year plunges into night
and the heart plunges
lower than night

to an empty, windswept place
without sun, stars or moon
but a peculiar light as of thought

that spins a dark fire -
whirling upon itself until,
in the cold, it kindles

to make a man aware of nothing
that he knows, not loneliness
itself - Not a ghost but

would be embraced - emptiness
despair - (They
whine and whistle) among

the flashes and booms of war;
house of whose rooms
the cold is greater than can be thought,

the people gone that we loved,
the beds lying empty, the couches
damp, the chairs unused -

Hide it away somewhere
out of the mind, let it get roots
and grow, unrelated to jealous

ears and eyes - for itself.
In this mine they come to dig - all.
Is this the counterfoil to sweetest

music? The source of poetry that
seeing the clock stopped, says,
The clock has stopped

that thicked yesterday so well?
and hears the sound of lakewater
splashing - that is now stone.

William Carlos Williams, Antologia Breve, José Agostinho Baptista (trad.), Assirio & Alvim, 1993

Arrival

And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom -
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her hankles
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind...!

William Carlos Williams, Antologia Breve, José Agostinho Baptista (trad.), Assirio & Alvim, 1993

El Hombre

It's a strange courage
you give ancient star:

Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part.

William Carlos Williams, Antologia Breve, José Agostinho Baptista (trad.), Assirio & Alvim, 1993