Dennis Brutus

Morreu Dennis Brutus, poeta sul-africano. Mais aqui



1.
Golden oaks and jacarandas

flowering:

exquisite images

to wrench my heart.



2.
Each day, each hour

is not painful,

exile is not amputation,

there is no bleeding wound

no torn flesh and severed nerves;

the secret is clamping down

holding the lid of awareness tight shut—

sealing in the acrid searing stench

that scalds the eyes,

swallows up the breath

and fixes the brain in a wail—

until some thoughtless questioner

pries the sealed lid loose;


I can exclude awareness of exile

until someone calls me one.



3.
The agony returns;

after a crisis, delirium,

surcease and aftermath;

my heart knows an exhausted calm,

catharsis brings forgetfulness

but

with recovery, resilience

the agony returns.



4.
At night

to put myself to sleep

I play alphabet games

but something reminds me of you

and I cry out

and am wakened.



5.
I have been bedded

in London and Paris

Amsterdam and Rotterdam,

in Munich and Frankfort

Warsaw and Rome—

and still my heart cries out for home!



6.
Exile

is the reproach

of beauty

in a foreign landscape,

vaguely familiar

because it echoes

remembered beauty.



(1975)


E um dos maiores poetas africanos, um herói.