Duas épocas distintas da minha vida, que em quase nada se podem assemelhar aparte do mesmo sujeito. Um Eu que, embora em constante mutação, traga sempre arreigados os fios condutores do seu passado.
Uma dessas épocas, Torquay 1985, quando descobri este poema de Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
A segunda, esta, quando pousei os olhos nestes traços de Gustave Doré.
Há entre elas uma ponte profundamente perturbadora.



Colours*

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have.
Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea,
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love this is fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's slipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and that the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.





White Rose
Dante and Beatrice and the Heavenly Host of Angels




* Translation from Russian © Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi