Paulo Leminski

DANGER: SHIPWRECK AHEAD

  This page, for instance,
wasn't made to be read.
  It was made to be pallid,
a merely stolen Iliad,
  a thing kept quiet,
a leaf long fallen
  going back to its branch.

  It was made to be beach,
who knows, Andromeda, Antarctica,
  Himalaya, sensed syllable,
it was made to be ultimate,
  something yet unmade.

  Words brought from afar
by the waters of the Nile,
  one day this page, papyrus,
will have to be translated
  into symbol, Sanskrit,
into every Indian's dialect,
  will have to say good day
just to what's murmured in the ear,
  will have to be rough stone
where someone drops the glass.
  Isn't that how life is?

[trans. Chris Daniels]

 

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