O Haver

Remains, above all, this ability for tenderness
This perfect intimacy with silence
Remains this intimate voice asking forgiveness for everything
Forgive! They are not to blame for being born

Remains this ancient respect for the night, this speaking softly
This hand that gropes before having, this fear
Of hurting by touching, this strong man's hand
Full of gentleness towards everything that exists

Remains this immobility, this economy of gestures
This increasing inertia in the face of the infinite
This childlike stutter of someone trying to babble the inexpressible
This irreducible refusal of poetry not lived

Remains this communion with sounds, this feeling
Of matter at rest, this anguish of simultaneity
Of time, this slow poetic decomposition
In search of one life, one death, one Vinicius

Remains this heart burning like a candle
In a cathedral in ruins, this sadness
Facing the everyday, or this sudden joy
Upon hearing footsteps in the early morning that fade away without memory

Remains this desire to cry in the face of beauty
This blind rage in the face of injustice and misunderstanding
This immense pity for oneself, this immense
Pity for one's useless poetry and useless strength

Remains this feeling of childhood suddenly unearthed
From small absurdities, this foolish ability
To laugh for no reason, this ridiculous desire to be useful
And this courage to commit without necessity

Remains this distraction, this availability, this vagueness
Of someone who knows that everything has already been as it will be in the becoming
And at the same time this desire to serve, this
Contemporaneity with the tomorrow of those who have neither yesterday nor today

Remains this uncontrollable faculty to dream
And transfigure reality, within this incapacity
To accept it as it is, and this
Broad vision of events, and this impressive

And unnecessary foresight, and this previous memory
Of nonexistent worlds, and this
Static heroism, and this tiny indecipherable light
That sometimes poets call hope

Remains this obstinacy in not fleeing from the labyrinth
In the desperate search for some door that may be nonexistent
And this unspeakable courage in the face of great fear
And at the same time this terrible fear of being reborn in the darkness

Remains this desire to feel equal to everyone
To reflect in looks without curiosity and without history
Remains this intrinsic poverty, this pride, this vanity
Of not wanting to be a prince except of his own kingdom

Remains this loyalty to the woman and her torment
This abandonment without redemption to her insatiable voracity
Remains this eternal dying on the cross of her arms
And this eternal resurrection to be crucified again

Remains this daily dialogue with death, this fascination
For the moment to come, when, moved
She will come to open the door for me like an old lover
Without knowing she is my newest girlfriend