Ruy Ventura (translated by Brian Strang)
from How To Leave a House

 

stone—world

(for Palácios da Silva)

the stone accompanies
the shape of the world

the image grows, accompanies
all the city
and, some time later,
a stone is born
—a face,
a voice lost for so many years

the night keeps:
everything dies
above all the secret book
(the skin opens its pores)
a vein
the breathing, in the interior
of the stone
a pillar holds up the building

it disappears

the house remains on its feet—
a statue of sand
in a winter garden
the street is, at this moment, another
the world is woven
in the collision of another city

that grows

 

 

plan—photograph

I design a plan,
encounter spaces that no hand enlarged
or demolished
they divided the building at the top
so it would be easier to arrive
at the firmament
—an opening in the foliage
the design of a window
some voices singing

should I photograph everything?
the light is not at the desired intensity

for the first time
the stone is born again.
I hide your body in the vestiges of
the man
whose name disappears

I descend to the place where the earth
separates

the water corrects everything

 

 

road—forgetting

a single loquat tree stood
where you are now sitting—
this is the end of cities,
we change rooms but are not able to
change the house

the key placed on top of the table
the bread placed on the kitchen bench, the shirt on the shoulders of
the chair—the breathing
small number or perplexity

this afternoon—a ship
glass door which we dim little by little
a right handed thumb
like
a road descending to the river

special equilibrium
or storm—framed profile or

forgetting

 

 

face—image

the door disappeared—with the night
the image remained in the middle of the house
and the light
rises
so we can all see
its face

we sit
on the wall
resting the morning
or the shadow
in search of a photograph

on the return road
the sidewalk became
a labrynth
a painted tile

and inside of its design
a face

our own
image