Poem
António Ramos Rosa
Trees
What trees try to sayin their slow silence, their vague murmuring,
the sense they have, there where they are,
the reverence, the resonance, the transparency
and the bright and shadowy accents of an airy phrase.
And the shade and the leaves are the innocence of an idea
that between water and space turned itself to lithe integrity.
Beneath the magic breath of the light they are transparent boats.
I don’t know if it’s air or blood budding from their boughs.
I hear the finest foam of their green throats.
I am not, never will be, far from that pure water
and those ancient lamps of hidden isles.
What pure serenity of memory, what horizons
surrounding the silent well! It is a song in sleep
and the wind and light are the breath of a child
who upon a bough of a tree embraces the world.
© Translation: 2002, Alexis Levitin
Árvores
Árvores
O que tentam dizer as árvoresno seu silêncio lento e nos seus vagos rumores,
o sentido que têm no lugar onde estão,
a reverência, a ressonância, a transparência
e os acentos claros e sombrios de uma frase aérea.
E as sombras e as folhas são a inocência de uma ideia
que entre a água e o espaço se tornou uma leve integridade.
Sob o mágico sopro da luz são barcos transparentes.
Não sei se é o ar se é o sangue que brota dos seus ramos.
Ouço a espuma finíssima das suas gargantas verdes.
Não estou, nunca estarei longe desta água pura
e destas lâmpadas antigas de obscuras ilhas.
Que pura serenidade da memória, que horizontes
em torno do poço silencioso! É um canto num sono
e o vento e a luz são o hálito de uma criança
que sobre um ramo de árvore abraça o mundo.
© 1960, António Ramos Rosa
From: No Calcanhar do Vento
Publisher: Lisboa,
From: No Calcanhar do Vento
Publisher: Lisboa,
Poems
Poems of António Ramos Rosa
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Trees
What trees try to sayin their slow silence, their vague murmuring,
the sense they have, there where they are,
the reverence, the resonance, the transparency
and the bright and shadowy accents of an airy phrase.
And the shade and the leaves are the innocence of an idea
that between water and space turned itself to lithe integrity.
Beneath the magic breath of the light they are transparent boats.
I don’t know if it’s air or blood budding from their boughs.
I hear the finest foam of their green throats.
I am not, never will be, far from that pure water
and those ancient lamps of hidden isles.
What pure serenity of memory, what horizons
surrounding the silent well! It is a song in sleep
and the wind and light are the breath of a child
who upon a bough of a tree embraces the world.
© 2002, Alexis Levitin
From: No Calcanhar do Vento
From: No Calcanhar do Vento
Trees
What trees try to sayin their slow silence, their vague murmuring,
the sense they have, there where they are,
the reverence, the resonance, the transparency
and the bright and shadowy accents of an airy phrase.
And the shade and the leaves are the innocence of an idea
that between water and space turned itself to lithe integrity.
Beneath the magic breath of the light they are transparent boats.
I don’t know if it’s air or blood budding from their boughs.
I hear the finest foam of their green throats.
I am not, never will be, far from that pure water
and those ancient lamps of hidden isles.
What pure serenity of memory, what horizons
surrounding the silent well! It is a song in sleep
and the wind and light are the breath of a child
who upon a bough of a tree embraces the world.
© 2002, Alexis Levitin
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