08 May 2008 00:30
Keeping", trans
Keeping", trans. of "Guardar" by Antonio Cicero, for "Camões' Feast" installation by Regina Vater in Brazilian Visual Poetry exhibition, Mexic-Art Museum, Austin, Tx. Jan. 17-Mar. 18, 2002.Keeping
("Guardar"1996)
Antonio Cícero
trans. Charles A. Perrone (2001)
Keeping something is not to conceal it or leave it under lock and key.
Nothing at all is meant for keeping in coffers.
Offers in safes are being lost from sight.
Keeping something is to look at, after, and up to it,
to guard and regard it, that is,
to illuminate it and be illuminated by it.
Keeping something is to watch over it, that is, to remain vigilant for it,
that is, to stay awake for it, that is, to be for its sake before and after.
That is why one better keeps the flight of a bird
Than birds without flights.
That is why one writes, one speaks, one publishes,
That is why one declares and declaims a poem:
To keep it:
So that it, in turn, may keep guarding its keepsakes:
May keep whatever a poem keeps:
That is the deal with poems:
That keeping whatever wants keeping
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