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And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me, I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint. without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets.
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddle
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void.
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars,
my hear broke free on the open sky.
I worked out my odes
on a four-legged table,
laying before me bread and wine
and roast meet
(that block boat
of our dreams).
Sometimes I set out scissors cups and nails,
hammer and carnations.
Tables are trustworthy:
titanic quadrupeds,
they sustain
our hopes and our daily like.
The rich man's table,
scrolled and shining,
is
a fabulous ship
bearing bunches of fruit
Gluttony's table in a wonder,
piled high with Gothic lobsters,
and there is also a lonesome
table in our aunt's dining room,
is summer. They've closed
the curtains,
and a single ray of summer light
strikes like a sword
upon this table sitting in the dark
and greets the plum's transparent peace.
And there is a faraway table, a humble table,
where they're weaving
a wreath
for a dead miner.
That table gives off the chilling odor
of a man's wasted pain.
There's a table
in a shadowy room nearby
that love sets ablaze with its flames.
A woman's glove was left behind there,
trembling like a husk of fire.
The world
is a table
engulfed in honey and smoke,
smothered by apples and blood.
The table is already set,
and we know the truth
as soon as we are called:
whether we're called to war or to dinner
we will have to choose sides,
have to know
how we'll dress
to sit
at the long table,
whether we'll wear the pants of hate
or the shirt of love, freshly laundered.
It's time to decide,
they're calling:
boys and girls,
let's eat!