The Mystical Rose

by Adélia Prado

  I write a poem and delude myself that I’ve escaped sadness.

  I merely make it rhythmic, lighter perhaps.

  I do my best to make it beautiful, bearable,

  and for that reasonless reason I cry some more.

  The President is dying: it’s very sad.

  Spring Lamb with Fava Beans –

  who, at a time like this, can take heart from cookbooks?

  Self-propelled sex droops, weighted down, wilted.

  The moon is a planet, a guitar is wood and gut.

  I take advantage of the fact that the President is dying

  and cry for my tooth decay, my varicose veins,

  the ugly skirt about to cross the street, the humble elbow,

  the head full of bobby pins, looking regal.

  I cry because I’m about to remake myself and laugh out loud

  and ask incorrigibly after the phase of the moon

  and sow flower seed and set out vegetables.

  I cry because I’ve relapsed into pleasure like a little boy

  and, old as I am, this is humiliating.

  I cry for having browbeat myself on behalf of happiness,

  such a proud heart, lacking naturalness.

  The President is dying: it’s a good cause.

  I take advantage of it and cry for the Brazilian people,

  for the Southern Cross, which only now I realise

  might not belong to us.

  The Land of Vera Cruz, Santa Cruz, the Land of the Holy Cross,

  Caminha’s letter home, a harbinger of our future:

  ‘This country will go far, my Lord King.’

  The Land of Palm Trees in whose shadow I weep, incongruous.

  By birth and taste, by destiny, and now by hard choice

  I covet the song-thrush, the President alive, the fish alive,

  my father alive and hoarse from yelling:

  VIVA! VIVA! VIVA!

  It’s hard to die faced with life,

  life so hard to understand,

  impossible not to love.

  Infinite life which in order to continue disappears

  and takes another form and sprouts anew,

  a tree once pruned now blossoming,

  its root immersed in God. Oh, God,

  my eyeball aches, cramped from crying,

  my soul is sad; I’d like to quit my job.

  No hot food for this houseful today.

  I’m not bathing, or combing my hair, or seeing anyone,

  a tiny retaliation against the pain of living.

  Anything that can sadden will continue,

  as well as anything laughable, delectable.

  Life will go on, repetitive.

  Life will go on being new.

  Itself. Naked.

  Anyone who has ever lived has said the word Cross,

  the word Father, bowing his or her head

  and saying, at least once, from the depths of weariness:

  ‘Oh, dear God’, and would have given a kingdom

  for the simple dwelling place of joy.

  Lord, console us, have pity.

  ‘Victory shall come from Your hand,

  from Your divine arm.’

  A Fast One

  Love wants to hug you but can’t.

  The crowd crowds around

  with its malicious eyes,

  placing shards of glass on top of the wall

  so that love will give up.

  Love turns to the post office,

  but the post office tricks him,

  the letter doesn’t arrive,

  love doesn’t know whether he is or isn’t.

  Love jumps on horseback,

  hops off the train,

  arrives at the door worn out

  from so much walking.

  He speaks the word lily,

  asks for water, drinks coffee,

  sleeps in your presence,

  sucks on a mint.

  All cleverness, artifice, ingenuity:

  If you’re not careful, love will catch you,

  eat you up, drench you.

  But water love’s not.

  Absence of Poetry

  He who made me took me away from plenty;

  forty days he’s been tormenting me in the desert.

  The politician died, poor guy.

  He wanted to become president and didn’t.

  My father wanted to eat.

  My mother wanted to wander.

  I’m in favor of the revolution but first I want a rhythm.

  Dear God, my son asks for my blessing – I give it.

  I, who am bad.

  Why not even wasp’s honey for me?

  I, who said in the town square (exposing myself),

  ‘Let’s dance, you ragamuffins, follow the beat,

  the Kingdom is implicit but real’ –

  I don’t know where to go with this:

  ‘The steeples are most eternal at two in the afternoon.’

  I see the mango tree against the black cloud,

  my heart warms,

  once more I delude myself that I will make the poem.

  Everything she learned on the street

  the converted tart does for mystical ecstasy:

  so what if the seamstress comes to the door

  sucking her cavity?

  I still think she’s pretty.

  Some things that tempt me: physical beauty,

  the precise configuration of lips,

  sex, the telephone, letters,

  the bitter shape of the mouth of Ecce Homo.

  Dear God of Bilac, Abraham and Jacob,

  will this cruel hour not pass?

  Pluck me from this sand, oh, Spirit,

  redeem these words from dust.

  In this tropical country a hard winter rages.

  I’m wearing socks, a jacket and distress.

  Blossoms

  The moonflower spread its wide blossoms,

  each one a white skirt.

  If I played the piano, they’d dance.

  They make the world seem so good

  I’m not even ashamed of wanting a husband.

  They perfume the night.

  The pipe of a little boy who never died

  pipes on, wandering and sweet.

  I go about my parish duties cheerfully

  and never tire of waiting:

  any day now, something wonderful might happen –

  the five wounds, the flying saucer, the poet with his horse

  whinnying at my door.

  I wanted Mama and Papa’s blessing, I wanted so much

  to collect some birdcalls, some corners of the afternoon,

  the balance of all that balances on the wind,

  and play it on the flute. It’s so good

  I don’t even care about God not letting me

  be beautiful and young

  (one of my soul’s desires).

  ‘The spirit of God hovered above the waters….’

  Above me hover these blossoms

  and I am tougher than time.

  Young Girl in Bed

  Papa coughs, letting me know he’s near,

  and inspects the window latches one by one.

  The roof beam is peroba wood,

  I can sleep soundly. Mama tucks me in with a prayer

  and I’m off, chasing after men,

  trying not to be too greedy, letting good win out.

  If I touch myself, I unleash the throngs,

  shoals of little fish.

  Mama knows all about the topaz burning in me,

  that’s why she says (a little enviously):

  Get to sleep, it’s late.

  Yes, Mama, I’m on my way:

  I’ll stroll around the plaza with no one to scold me.

  Bye-bye, I can take care of myself, I’ll camp out

  in the back alleys, befriended by boys from the bars

  with guitars and eyes that won’t leave me alone.

  When the
city is snoring in mist

  the seminarians will be waiting for me in the sanctuary.

  Heaven is right here, Mama!

  It’s a good thing I’m not a book

  steeped in the catechism of Christian doctrine,

  I can postpone my scruples and ride horseback

  through the apathy of the well-pruned chrysanthemums.

  Tomorrow I’ll worry about the pretty wine stain

  wilted flowers make on the ground.

  Meanwhile, factories have their courtyards,

  walls have nooks and crannies to hide behind.

  They’re nice to me in the barracks.

  No, no tea, Mother dear,

  it’s Friar Crisóstomo’s hand I want,

  anointing me with holy oil.

  I want passion from life.

  And slaves, please – I’m weary.

  With my love of crossness and theater,

  I want my folding cot, I want

  the holy angel of the Lord,

  my zealous guardian.

  But relax – he’s a eunuch, Mama.

  The Black Umbrella

  Forgotten on the table,

  handle upturned

  and edges folded,

  he’s like his master, dressed

  and laid out in the coffin.

  Not extended at the joints,

  not hung on that serious arm

  which, since it was his master,

  is underground by now.

  As for him, he’s bound for the cellar.

  There’s an ancient photo where he posed, open,

  with the owner, a young man without spectacles.

  Umbrella for rain, umbrella for sun,

  umbrella for the piercing memory

  of all that was a little ridiculous

  and innocent in us.

  Umbrella for life, black accordion file,

  dog of mourning, sprawled dog.

  Passion

  Once in a while God takes poetry away from me.

  I look at a stone, I see a stone.

  The world, so full of departments,

  is not a pretty ball flying free in space.

  I feel ugly, gazing in mirrors to try to provoke them,

  thrashing the brush through my hair,

  susceptible to believing in omens.

  I become a terrible Christian.

  Every day at this time the sound of a giant mortar and pestle:

  Here comes Gimpy, I think, and sadden with fear.

  ‘What day is today?’ says Mother;

  ‘Friday is the day of sorrowful mysteries.’

  The night-light glimmers its already humble ray,

  narrowing once and for all the black of night.

  Enter, in the calm of the hour, the buzz

  of the factory, in continuous staccato.

  And I am in heat, unceasingly,

  I persist in going to the garden to attract butterflies

  and the memory of the dead.

  I fall in love once a day,

  I write horrible letters, full of spasms,

  as if I had a piano and bags under my eyes,

  as if my name were Anne of the Cross.

  Except for the eyes in photographs,

  no one knows what death is.

  If there were no clover in the garden,

  I don’t know if I would write this;

  no one knows what talent is.

  I sit on the porch watching the street,

  waiting for the sky to sadden with dusk.

  When I grow up I’ll write a book:

  ‘You mean fireflies are the same thing as lightning bugs?’ they asked, amazed.

  Over leftover coals, the beans

  balloon in the black pot.

  A little jolt: the end of the prayer long gone.

  The young pullets did not all fit

  under the mother hen;

  she clucked a warning.

  This story is threatening to end, stopped up with stones.

  No one can stand to be merely Lenten.

  A pain this purple induces fainting,

  a pain this sad doesn’t exist.

  School cafeterias and radio broadcasts

  featuring calisthenics set to music

  sustain the order of the world, despite me.

  Even the thick knots extracted from the breast,

  the cobalt, its ray pointed at pained flesh –

  upon which I have cast this curse:

  I refuse to write one line to you – even these

  settle in among the firewood,

  longing for a place in the crucifixion.

  I started this letter bursting with pride,

  overestimating my ability to yell for help,

  tempted to believe that some things,

  in fact, have no Easter.

  But sleep overpowered me and this story dozed off

  letter by letter. Until the sun broke through.

  The flies awoke.

  And the woman next door had an attack of nerves;

  they called to me urgently from the garden wall.

  Death leaves behind photographs, articles of clothing,

  half-full medicine bottles, disoriented insects

  in the sea of flowers that covers the body.

  This poem has gone sticky on me. He won’t shake loose.

  He disgusts me, with his big head;

  I grab my shopping bag,

  I’ll stroll around the market.

  But there he is, brandy in his spittle,

  heels callused like a woman’s,

  coins in the palm of his hand.

  It’s not an exemplary life, this, robbing an old man

  of the sweet pleasure of grandchildren.

  My sadness was never mortal,

  it’s reborn every morning.

  Death doesn’t stop the pitter-pat of rain on the umbrella,

  tiny droplets

  innumerable as the constellations.

  I trail behind the funeral procession,

  mixing with holy women,

  I wipe the Sacred Visage.

  ‘All you who pass by, look and see

  if there is any sorrow like my sorrow….’

  ‘What day is this?’ asks Mother;

  ‘Sunday is the day of glorious mysteries.’

  Happiness alone has body:

  Head hung low,

  glassy eyes and mouth,

  bruised feelings and bruised limbs.

  Neighbourhood

  The young man has finished his lunch

  and is picking his teeth behind his hand.

  The bird scratches in the cage, showering

  him with canary seed and bird droppings.

  I consider picking one’s teeth unsightly;

  he only went to primary school

  and his bad grammar grates on me.

  But he’s got a man’s rump so seductive

  I fall desperately in love with him.

  Young men like him

  like to wolf their food:

  beef and rice, a slice of tomato

  and off to the movies

  with that face of invincible weakness

  for capital sins.

  I feel so intimate, simple,

  so touchable – because of love,

  a slow samba,

  because of the fact that we’re going to die

  and a refrigerator is a wonderful thing,

  and the crucifix his mother gave him,

  its gold chain against that frail chest –

  that …

  He scrapes at his teeth with the toothpick,

  he scrapes at my strumpet heart.

  Murmur

  Sometimes I get up at daybreak, thirsty,

  flecks of dream stuck to my nightclothes,

  and go look at the children in their beds.

  Right then what I’m most sure of is: we die.

  It bothers me not to have coined the wonderful phrase

 
at cock’s crow. The children go on snoring.

  Fragments, in sharp focus: his hands

  crossed on his chest like the dead,

  that little cut on his shoulder.

  The girl today so intent on a new dress

  is now fast asleep, oblivious,

  and this is terribly sad

  after she told me: ‘I think it would be even better

  with a ruffle!’ and cracked a half-smile,

  embarrassed by so much happiness.

  How is it that we mortals get bright-eyed

  because a dress is blue and has a bow?

  I take a sip and the water is bitter,

  and I think: Sex is frail,

  even the sex of men.

  Dénouement

  I have great admiration for ships

  and for certain people’s handwriting which I attempt to imitate.

  Of my entire family, I’m the only one who has seen the ocean.

  I describe it over and over; they say ‘hmm’

  and continue circling the chicken coop with wire.

  I tell about the spume, and the wearisome size of the waters;

  they don’t remember there’s such a place as Kenya,

  they’d never guess I’m thinking of Tanzania.

  Eagerly they show me the lot: this is where the kitchen will be,

  that’s where we’ll put in a garden.

  So what do I do with the coast?

  It was a pretty afternoon the day I planted myself in the window, between uncles,

  and saw the man with his fly open,

  the trellis angry with roses.

  Hours and hours we talked unconsciously in Portuguese

  as if it were the only language in the world.

  Faith or no, I ask where are my people who are gone;

  because I’m human, I zealously cover the pan of leftover sauce.

  How could we know how to live a better life than this,

  when even weeping it feels so good to be together?

  Suffering belongs to no language.

  I suffered and I suffer both in Minas Gerais and at the edge of the ocean.

  I stand in awe of being alive. Oh, moon over the backlands,

  oh, forests I don’t need to see to get lost in,

  oh, great cities and states of Brazil that I love as if I had invented them.

  Being Brazilian places me in a way I find moving

  and this, which without sinning I can call fate,

  gives my desire a rest.

  Taken all at once, it’s far too intelligible; I can’t take it.