Circular Time

In the leafed shadows of our footsteps
under a mantle of cloud, the day darkened; Autumn
crafted and wiped out new and ephemeral
constellations, and by the window, reaching out to distant
snow dusted peaks robed in sweet suffering dew,
our eyes grew old; our memories and those
we loved weaved a forgotten word; and life,
ever returning, and ever falling, seemed to vanish
like foam or a brief remembrance, an ice block,
transparent, shaping and changing the faces of time, or
like a shattering of fragile wings, were the geese
to try and grab it in full flight.
 
But it was precisely because the passing of the years
weighing on us was coming back or disappearing, that the lands and
the valleys were heard sighing, were allowed to leave the grains of sand
on their face, like long ago in Connemara; nature
seemed to be about to transform, our shadow was
about to disappear; the snow was falling, kept falling, the yew snow
letting the snow through; and Winter arrived with
its roots dipped in water, and the turn of the year
went yet fortuitously round the heath,
through Spring, and Summer; another breath of its spirit like
a geranium whose petals drew an incessant, invisible path, and fell
into the crater of innocence of those who live, of those who die.

--Rui Coias

translated by Ana Hudson