The milk that here falls forever
and flows as if it were true,
a liquid which the light of the paint feigns
(and so completely) this afternoon,
drips slowly, stuck to the instant
(morning of a woman far from me),
in a different time, so distant,
that frees itself (an endless now).
She crosses (like the milk, she is light)
the space and the hours without spilling,
without giving herself to the outside –
only to our gaze, only to our gaze.
Concentration of a being within herself.
The milk here falls forever.
Aprender a ler uma língua –
O leite que aqui cai eternamente
e flui como se fosse de verdade,
um líquido que a luz da tinta mente
(e tão completamente) nesta tarde,
escorre lentamente preso ao instante
(manhã de uma mulher longe de mim),
num tempo diferente, tão distante,
que solta-se (presente sem ter fim).
E ela atravessa (como o leite, é luz)
o espaço e as horas sem se derramar,
sem dar-se ao fora, aos agoras nus –
se entrega inteira só à luz do olhar.
Concentração de um ser dentro de si.
E o leite cai eternamente aqui.
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© Natan Barreto, first published in Esconderijos em Papéis (Hiding Places on Paper), 2007
Picture 11029189, © Thaliastock / Mary Evans
Natan Barreto was born in Salvador, Brazil. He has lived in Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Rome and, since 1992, in London. He has published four collections of poetry: Under the Roofs of the Night (1999), Hiding Places on Paper (2007), Still Movement (2016) and Creatures: animal sketches (2017); a volume of translations from the French of Madagascan writer Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Almost-Dreams & Translated from the Night (2009); and the biography Among the Mango Trees: the Life of Eunice Palma (2011). In 2017 his still unpublished book A backyard and other corners won the II Sosígenes Costa Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of Letters of Ilhéus, in Bahia, Brazil.
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