Today we bring you a poem from one of Brazil’s most lauded living poets, Salgado Maranhão. In clear, crisp lines, the poet evokes a sense of loss and a sublimation of that loss into something beautiful, something lasting. If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out the poetry section in the Winter 2018 issue of Asymptote.
Day Without Dawn
Now,
in the city of your absence,
another day
breaks. And pleading,
a cry trickles through the countryside.
All places
are made of your befores.
From the window,
night comes
with empty hands. And
everything in the end vanishes
like a tissue woven of wind.
Only my heart insists
on raising up your name…
beyond, beyond forgetting.
translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin