Every Memory Is Moaning Softly Inside Me.

"Don't leave me, begs the past. Don't abandon us, weep the images. Time itself is talking to me, admonishing me. I draw up my legacy against its inexorable tide.
Faces tumble and clink like coins in a slot-machine.
I have not forgotten anything. I am counting you and gathering you together, sorting you out the better to see you. A statement of account to no conclusion. An escalation. To see whether, if I pile you up, if I lay you one on top of the other like bricks, I'll be able to climb up, to build the enormous staircase I need to go and hang this moon up in the sky."

-Agnes Desarthe

To Love by Florbela Espanca.

To Love
I want to love, love with abandon!
To love for love’s sake: here, there,
this one, that one, another, and everyone.
To make love, to be in love, and to love no one.
To remember? To Forget? Makes no difference.
To hold on or let go? Neither bad nor good.
To say you can love one your entire life.
There is one Spring in each life:
You must sing it like Spring, floridly,
For if God gave us voice, it was to sing!
And if one day I must be dust, ashes, and nothing
let my night be a dawn,
let me know how to lose myself . . . to find myself . . .
Florbela Espanca, “Amar”, Charneca em Flor.
III
My body trembles seeking yours,
my hands are hot on your skin
smelling of amber, vanilla, and honey,
my crazed arms long to embrace you.
I search for your eyes everywhere,
thirsty for kisses, bitter,
overcome with hunger sharp and cruel,
because nothing satisfies it!
And I see you from afar. I feel your soul
near mine, a calm lake,
telling me that you don’t love me.
And my heart, disregarded,
drifts on the currents,
a black skiff on a sea of flames.
Florbela Espanca, “III.” Charneca em Flor.

IV
It’s you! It’s you! You’ve come, finally!
I hear again the laughter in your steps!
It’s you I see holding out your arms
created for me to hold you close!
Seeing this, everything is divine and holy.
The blues and weariness are gone,
the world isn’t the world: it’s a garden,
an open sky: infinite space.
Touch me all over, Love, hold me tight!
What do you see around you? There’s no one!
The earth? – a dimming star.
Everything that is a glowing flame, everything that you feel,
everything that is life and vibrates eternally
is your being mine, Love, and my being yours.
Florbela Espanca, “IV.” Charneca em Flor.
V
Tell me, love, that I’m loved,
tell me about the brilliance of your favorite dreams,
snuggle me, smiling, next to your chest,
take life’s worries from me.
Drunk with a strange labor,
I bring my undone heart in my hands.
Show me the light, teach me the rules
that will save and ransom me.
I am deep in this black well,
without illusions, without beliefs, without tenderness,
torment without faith of the dying.
I scream your name in a strange thirst
as if it were, love, all the coolness
of the mountains’ crystal waters.
Florbela Espanca, “V.” Charneca em Flor.

Thank you Carolina Matos.