I apologize for my absence. I haven't felt like writing this last little bit. Sometimes I find myself in these little ruts where I just feel out of sorts for awhile. I've decided that I've ignored this site long enough, and even though I still don't feel like writing, I've decided to share something I wrote awhile ago, but never shared. Perhaps typing it out will help me to get back to normal. Many of you won't be able to fully understand this post, because it's based on a poem that was written in Portuguese by Carlos Drummond de Andrade entitled, "No meio do caminho". I'll start by citing the poem and then share what I wrote.
No meio do caminho
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
Nunca esquecerei desse acontecimento
na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.
Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
-Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Now for what I wrote:
Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho.
That's what the poet wrote.
"What does it mean?", she asked.
I responded that it took me
back to his land,
when I walked in the caminhos.
Some were paved,
some cobbled,
but mostly dirt.
The dirt ones stayed with you.
On your pant legs, in the treads of your shoes.
They'd get into your shirts and coat you skin.
You'd breath them in on the hot, dry days.
Sometimes you'd walk on the paths when it was raining
or after they were turned to mud.
You'd slosh through the mud, sometimes ankle deep.
Hard going, walking in mud; your pants get dirty, your shoes heavy.
Maybe on a day like this he saw a pedra in the caminho
and was grateful that for a moment he had a sure dry
place to step, to kick some mud off his shoes
before continuing on.
Maybe I'm right,
probably not,
but she didn't need to laugh
and say that I was wrong
How does she know?
The poet never said.
I stepped. I thought it was a pedra,
but it was only mud.
Friday, June 27, 2008
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