Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Poxa, eu fiquei superemocionado quando li este poema. A frase inicial e o período final resumem, de certa forma, a minha filosofia de vida, mais ou menos como encarar a trajetória de Ulisses não do ponto de vista do viajante, mas do observador. Os resultados importam, é claro, mas o percurso é que define quem você é. Fins, meios, tudo isto já gerou muita discussão e, francamente, gerou um verso absolutamente maravilhoso: "the gentelness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist." Pode não ser sempre, mas quando é marca sua vida e é importante que estas marcas sejam valorizadas, independente da cicatriz que provocam.
E eu, fora da vida imaginada pelos poetas, ouvi a frase sobre Provence exatamente como está escrita aí. Perdeu-se muito por apegar-se ao pouco. Domage!!
Ah! Jack Gilbert! Poeta americano, recém-morto (ué, não tem recém-nascido?) dia 12/11....escreveu coisas lindas, que podem ser encontradas em Refusing Heaven, The Great Fires: Poems, 1982-1992 e The Dance Most of All: Poems. Em Português??Não sei de nada, nem em coletâneas.
desenho da linda, maravilhosa, Ana Escorse.
Como sinto falta de falar inglês... consigo entender a ideia do poema, mas fica uma lacuna na compreensão da sutileza, da beleza de algumas frases.
ResponderExcluirMas, ainda assim, belíssimo!
Defendo muito essa teoria: não é porque acabou que não prestou. Na hora do arranca rabo, a raiva pode até cegar, mas depois há que se guardar a lembrança de tudo de bom que foi vivido. Pena que, muitas vezes, as pessoas perdem o tempo de por o ponto final e não conseguem perceber isso.