Carlos Drummond de Andrade - Multitudinous Heart

and a country boy nostalgic

for the scholar. And so

he’s become the patriarch.

Further down we have

the inheritor of your iron

will, your stoic temperament.

But he didn’t want to repeat you.

He thought it pointless

to reproduce on earth

what the earth will swallow.

He loved. And loves. And will love.

But he didn’t want his love

to be a prison for two,

a contract between yawns

and four slippered feet.

Brutal on first contact,

cool on a second meeting,

and affable on the third,

it seems he’s afraid

of being, fatally, human.

It seems he feels rage

but that honey transcends his rage,

and what clever, crafty ways

he has to fool himself

about himself: he wields

a force he’s unable

to call just kindness.

Look who’s sitting there.

She quit talking, not wanting

to feed with new words

the discourse always humming

among those of us less guarded.

She quit talking. Don’t take it

badly. If you loved her

so much, then something in her

still loves you, in that twisted

way of ours. (Not being

happy explains everything.)

I realize how painful

these family occasions are,

and to argue now

would kill the party, killing

you — no one dies

just once, nor once and for all.

Lots of lives will always

remain to be consumed,

owing to the clashes

of our blood in the different

bodies where it’s dispersed.

Lots of deaths are always

waiting to be slowly rein-

carnated in another dead soul.

But we’re all alive.

And not just alive: we’re happy.

We’re just like we were

before being us, and no one

will say that any of your children

were missing. There, for instance,

sitting at the corner of the table,

not with humility and perhaps

because he’s the king of conceit,

fond of his role

as the awkward misfit—

that’s me you’re seeing. What

do you think? Don’t worry: I work.

What used to be the good life

has become just life

(and it wasn’t all that good,

nor did it turn out that bad).

Yes, that he is me.

Take note: I’ve every flaw

I couldn’t find in you

and none of the flaws (much less

the virtues) that were yours.

No matter: I’m your son

in my negative way

of affirming you.

We fought, my God, how

we fought! Serious stuff,

but only love knows how

to walk the paths of love.

Any pleasure I gave you

was feeble … perhaps no more

than the hope of pleasure.

Yes, perhaps I gave you

the neutral satisfaction

of feeling that your son

was even too inept

to become a nasty person.

I’m not a nasty person.

If you had doubts, rest easy,

that’s not my nature.

A few affections thread

my jaded heart. Do I

get jaded? Exceedingly.

That’s my weak point, a fault

I didn’t get from you.

Enough of me, there are still

eight more of us for you

to see — all puny, all

cut short. What sorry

flora we found to adorn

the table! But it’s not true.

So remote, so pure,

so forgotten in the ground

that swallows and transforms,

they’re angels — bright angels

emitting rays of love,

and amid the blur of crystal

their crystal also rings,

reverberating its own

shadow. They’re angels who deigned

to grace our banquet, to sit here

on stools. They’re angels. And you

had no idea that when

a mortal loses a child,

he’s giving back to God

something of his airy,

sensitive, divine substance.

Count us: fourteen at the table.

Or thirty? Maybe fifty

if still more kin arrive

from our daily multiplied

flesh that couples and crosses

with other loving flesh.

There are fifty sinners,

if sin is having been born

and knowing the taste of sins

handed down to us.

The train of grandchildren

followed by great-grandchildren

has come to ask your blessing

and take part in your dinner.

Look at this child here,

at her chin, her eyes, her expression,

at her solemn self-awareness

and her girlish grace,

and tell me if she isn’t,

in the midst of all my errors,

an unexpected truth.

She’s my explanation,

my best or only verse,

my all that fills my nothing.

Now the crowded table

is larger than the house.

We talk with our mouths full,

we lay into each other,

we laugh until we cry,

we forget about the harsh

inhibitor called respect,

and all our happiness,

so often withered in somber

commemorative feasts

(now’s not the time to remember),

all the would-be gestures

of brotherly feeling, abandoned

(now’s not the time to remember),

and the soft-and-tender words

that would have changed our lives

had they been spoken back then

(now’s not the time for change),

it all spreads around the table,

like a new kind of food.

Oh what a heavenly supper

and what down-to-earth pleasure!

Who made it? What undeniable

vocation of self-sacrifice

set the table, had the children?

Who hardly lived? Who paid

for all of this with tireless labor?

Whose invisible hand

traced this flowery flourish

around the pudding as if

tracing a halo? Who has

a halo? Who doesn’t have one,

since right away she thinks

of sharing her halo’s gold,

and what she thinks, she does?

Who’s sitting to your left

with head bowed? Whose white

— so white it’s whiter-than-white—

head of white hair

bleeds the color from the oranges,

bleaches the coffee, and annuls

the shimmer of the seraphim?

Who’s all light and sheer white?

Surely you never imagined

how a shade of white could be

so different from whiteness

itself … An absolute white

created in your absence,

but here it is, and it’s perfect,

concrete, and cold as the moon.

How can our party be just

for one of you, not for both?

Now you’re reunited,

the two of you bound tighter

than earthly vows can bind.

You’re together at this table

whose wood is truer and harder

than any law of the nation.

And you’re above us,

above this dinner to which

we summoned you because

we love you after all

and, loving, fool ourselves

next to this empty

table.

Cada dia que passa incorporo mais esta verdade, de que eles não vivem senão em nós

e por isso vivem tão pouco; tão intervalado; tão débil.

Fora de nós é que talvez deixaram de viver, para o que se chama tempo.

E essa eternidade negativa não nos desola.

Pouco e mal que eles vivam, dentro de nós, é vida não obstante.

E já não enfrentamos a morte, de sempre trazê-la conosco.

Mas, como estão longe, ao mesmo tempo que nossos atuais habitantes

e nossos hóspedes e nossos tecidos e a circulação nossa!

A mais tênue forma exterior nos atinge.

O próximo existe. O pássaro existe.

E eles também existem, mas que oblíquos! e mesmo sorrindo, que disfarçados …

Há que renunciar a toda procura.

Não os encontraríamos, ao encontrá-los.

Ter e não ter em nós um vaso sagrado,

um depósito, uma presença contínua,

esta é nossa condição, enquanto,

sem condição, transitamos

e julgamos amar