Despir o corpo: Seamus Heaney

Do poeta irlandês Seamus Heaney conheço pouco, além de que publicou o primeiro livro um ano antes de eu nascer, ganhou um Nobel da Literatura em 1995 e acaba de despedir-se deste mundo, aos 74 anos.

Fico a saber, entretanto, pelas notícias de que veio várias vezes a Portugal. Nomeadamente "a convite da capital da cultura Porto 2001 – quando participou, ao lado de Nuno Júdice, numa sessão na Biblioteca Almeida Garrett –, e depois em 2004 em Coimbra, cuja universidade o doutorou honoris causa", indica o Público.

 E faço uma nota mental para o ir descobrir um dia destes.
Afinal, os poetas não morrem. Apenas despem o corpo.

Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013)

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Deixo-vos um poema de Seamus Heaney traduzido para o português por Rui Carvalho Homem - e ainda alguns vídeos do próprio poeta a ler as suas palavras, para aqueles que entendem o inglês.

"A ÁRVORE DOS DESEJOS

Recordei-a como a árvore dos desejos que morreu
E vi-a subir, inteira, até ao céu,
Deixando um rasto de tudo o que se cravara
Por cada carência, uma e outra vez, na têmpera
Da sua casca e sâmago: moeda, alfinete e prego
Desfraldaram dela como uma cauda de cometa
Recém-cunhada e dissolvida. Tive uma visão
De uma ramada aérea atravessando húmidas nuvens,
De rostos erguidos, onde a árvore estivera."

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VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=30LR0tIDb3g#t=105


"THE UNDERGROUND

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
You in your going-away coat speeding ahead
And me, me then like a fleet god gaining
Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson
As the coat flapped wild and button after button
Sprang off and fell in a trail
Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station
After the trains have gone, the wet track
Bared and tensed as I am, all attention
For your step following and damned if I look back"

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E vários poemas mais, a propósito da atribuição do prémio Griffin de Poesia.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxKiij7Q788&feature=player_embedded#t=210


"A DRINK OF WATER

She came every morning to draw water
Like an old bat staggering up the field:
The pump's whooping cough, the bucket's clatter
And slow dimineundo as it filled,
Announced her. I recall
Her grey apron, the pocked white enamel
Of the brimming bucket, and the treble
Creak of her voice like the pump's handle.
Nights when a full moon lifted past her gable
It fell back through her window and would lie
Into the water set out on the table.
Where I have dipped to drink again, to be
Faithful to the admonishment on her cup,
"Remember the Giver," fading off the lip."

"OYSTERS

Our shells clacked on the plates.
My tongue was a filling estuary,
My palate hung with starlight:
As I tasted the salty Pleiades
Orion dipped his foot into the water.

Alive and violated
They lay on their beds of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean.
Millions of them ripped and shucked and scattered.

We had driven to the coast
Through flowers and limestone
And there we were, toasting friendship,
Laying down a perfect memory
In the cool thatch and crockery.

Over the Alps, packed deep in hay and snow,
The Romans hauled their oysters south to Rome:
I saw damp panniers disgorge
The frond-lipped, brine-stung
Glut of privilege

And was angry that my trust could not repose
In the clear light, like poetry or freedom
Leaning in from the sea. I ate the day
Deliberately, that its tang
Might quicken me all into verb, pure verb."

O video inclui ainda  "Tate's Avenue", "The Baylor" e "Postscript".
Deliciem-se.