“Viajo sozinha com o meu coração.”
(“I travel alone with my heart.”)
~ from “Despedida” (“Farewell”) by Cecília Meireles, trans. Natalie d’Arbeloff
At the shoe repairer’s,
a canvas boot unpaired
for at least two decades—
I want to reach inside
the window to touch the grimy
laces and pass them, overlapping,
through rusted grommets; then
tie a bow. A poet reminded me
that every poem should be a kind
of prayer— Should have a heart
red-blue and heaviest at midnight,
sloping from the branch,
under which the faithful
lover waits with open mouth
for the first dewdrop to fall.
[LAG-other-response url=”https://www.vianegativa.us/2015/06/how-to-recognize-the-road-three-more-poems-by-cecilia-meireles/” title=”Via Negativa: How to recognize the road…”]