Twenty Questions

Did I forget to look at the sky this morning

when I first woke up? Did I miss the willow tree?
The white gravel road that goes up from the cemetery,
but to where? And the abandoned house on the hill, 

   did it get
even a moment? Did I notice the small clouds so slowly
moving away? And did I think of the right hand
of God? What if it is a slow cloud descending
on earth as rain? As snow? As shade? Don't you think
I should move on to the mop? How it just sits there, 

   too often
unused? And the stolen rose on its stem?
Why would I write a poem without one?
Wouldn't it be wrong not to mention joy? Sadness,
its sleepy-eyed twin? If I'd caught the boat
to Mykonos that time when I was nineteen
would the moon have risen out of the sea
and shone on my life so clearly
I would have loved it
just as it was? Is the boat
still in the harbor, pointing
in the direction of the open sea? Am I
still nineteen? Going in or going out,
can I let the tide make of me
what it must? Did I already ask that?

Jim Moore é autor de seis livros de poesia, incluindo Lightning at Dinner, The Freedom of History, and The Long Experience of Love. É americano, seus poemas são muito divulgados por lá. Por aqui, o de sempre. Ou você corre (muito) atrás ou fica sem notícias do mundo civilizado. Eu sei que meu querido Pedro Malanki não gosta muito de poesia em outros idiomas, mas é que eu não gosto de poesia traduzida, mas gosto do Pedro, então, sempre que posto algo no original, eu me lembro dele. Mas será que ele lê o que eu posto aqui? Fica a pergunta, mais uma....