Testament
I’m about to fly off somewhere
and my fear of heights plus myself
finds me resorting to tranquillisers
and having confused dreams
If I should die
I want my daughter always to remember me
for someone to sing to her even if they can’t hold a tune
to offer her pure dreams
rather than a fixed timetable
or a well-made bed
To give her love and the ability
to look inside things
to dream of blue suns and brilliant skies
instead of teaching her how to add up
and how to peel potatoes
To prepare my daughter
for life
if I should die on a plane
and be separated from my body
and become a free-floating atom in the sky
Let my daughter
remember me
and later on say to her own daughter
that I flew off into the sky
and was all dazzle and contentment
to see that in her house none of the sums added up
and the potatoes were still in their sack forgotten
entire
***
Killing is easy
With my nail I murdered (so easy)
a small mosquito
that landed without permission and without a licence
on this piece of paper
Dressed to be invisible,
its wings too insubstantial to be seen
and once dead on the paper, a trace
of almost nothing
But a trace
with a trick of magic, a pretext
for a poem, and though its lymph burned
for less time
than my life-time,
it was still
a time lived
Laid low by no spear, no dagger,
no mortal poison
(a dignified dose of cyanide or strychnine)
it died, the victim of a fingernail,
and returned to dust:
a brief floury powder
But it must contain,
like all its relatives,
something concrete,
in less than a hundred years, it will be
the same substance
as feeds a poet’s tibia,
a face once loved,
this piece of paper pulp on the desk before me,
the tiniest most imperturbable point
on a comet’s tail –
***
No nymphs or muses
No nymphs or muses:
only a force that comes from within,
a touch of madness, of the abyss
that frightens
and seduces
A fountain of thread-thin water
finer than fine
(a too-bright moonbeam
would dry it up)
No river no lyre
no female flood of nymphs:
only some inherent inherited force,
in a fountain where the moon
does not shine
***
Mini-ode, in the form of a semi-biographical note
Good morning, dog and cat,
and thank you for your early morning greeting,
velvet body, soft tongue,
which means, in simultaneous translation:
Good morning
Good morning, sun, and thank you for coming in
and offering me this mirror
in which I see myself, full face,
your bright light lightening this sheet of paper
and inscribing on it, with one transparent ray,
time
Good morning to all things glossy out on the balcony,
the leaves of the camellia, whose very name shines,
the song of that bird,
as if the world, suddenly,
had become more world, and in such a way
that we might never again see
the day darken
Good morning to all those tiny creatures
invisible to me from my chair,
but who are all there: ants and spiders,
minuscule insects,
all doomed to die, but who will still be born here,
every day
Good morning, daughter, so like a sunflower,
how many more times will I say good morning,
glancing over at the corridor,
you, no longer to be lulled to sleep, but pure love
pure filigree,
and my sun almost setting
Good morning, sofa,
where I sit at night, slowly,
the flowers sometimes absent and sometimes
peopling this table, the glass door,
illuminated, all right angles,
books and paintings, small
photographs in brief
disorder
Good morning to you too
and thank you for the thread of perfume you brought me,
waxing a rough wooden floor
or the veins of a plant eager for leaves,
or even the flawed peace you gave me
the same peace I wish for you
Despite the discordant note
of waking each morning
to a world full of so many sunless hands
despite the disorderly, violent, rushing current
that is the world,
despite all, here is this brief note
on opening my eyes and saying good morning
and breathing in the newly-fresh air filling
everything
***
Electricity
The not-quite-turned-off tap
and in the silence
the invasive sound: a drop
small, regular
Like a nail in the brain
tearing: the sharp sound
of water. The torture the memory
the time spent waiting
for the next drop
the next blue whiplash
in the storm
*****
Ana Luísa Amaral published her first volume of poetry, Minha Senhora de Quê in 1990 and has since published fifteen collections. Translated into several languages, her work has brought her many prizes, including the 2008 Grande Prémio from the Portuguese Writers’ Association. She is also a translator, notably of the poetry of John Updike and Emily Dickinson.
Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for nearly thirty years and has translated works by such writers as Eça de Queiroz, José Saramago and Javier Marías. In 2013 she was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2014 was awarded an OBE for services to literature.