The Poem

The poem is not the song

that grows from the cricket to the rose.

The poem is the cricket

it is the rose

and it is what grows.

It is the thought that excludes

a determination

in the fountain from which it flows

and in what it describes.

The poem is what in man

dares, beyond man.

Events are stones

and poetry transcends them

in the already distant notion

of describing them.

And this very notion is only

a longing that fades away

in poetry. Pure intention

of singing what you do not know.

From Natália Correia

Translated by Diniz Borges for a forthcoming book, a collection of poetry titled Suspended Worlds