Coisas que mudaram #1

Sextas-feiras 13 costumavam ser dias de azar e gatos pretos

Fridays the 13th used to be days of bad luck and black cats

Coisas que não mudam #542

Palavras lidas #454

My Mother and Lucille Clifton Have Tea
by Parneshia Jones

When I get to where I’m going
I want the death of my children explained to me. —Lucille Clifton

They meet over tea and potato chips.
Brown and buttermilk women,
hipped and hardened,
legs uncrossed but proper
still in their smiles;
smiles that carry a sadness in faint creases.
A sadness they will never be without.

One asks the other,
“What do they call a woman who has lost a child?”

The other sighs between sips of lukewarm tea.
There is no name for us.

“No name? But there has to be a name for us.
We must have something to call ourselves.”

Surely, history by now and all the women
who carry their babies’ ghosts on their backs,
mothers who wake up screaming,
women wide awake in their nightmares,
mothers still expected to be mothers and human,
women who stand under hot showers weeping,
mothers who wish they could drown standing up,
women who can still smell them—hear them,
the scent and symphony of their children,
deep down in the good earth.

“Surely, history has not forgotten to name us?”

No woman wants to bear
whatever could be the name for this grief.
Even if she must bear the grief for all her days,
it would be far too painful to be called by that name.
“I’ve lost two, you know.”
Me too.
“I was angry at God, you know.”
Me too.
“I stopped praying but only for a little while,
and then I had no choice. I had to pray again.
I had to call out to something that was no longer there.
I had to believe God knew where it was.”

“I fear death no longer. It has taken everything.
But should I be? Should I be afraid of what death has taken?
That it took and left no name?”

The other who sighs between sips of lukewarm tea
leans over and kisses the cheek of the one still with questions.
She whispers…

No, you don’t have to be afraid.
Death is no more scary than the lives we have lived
without our babies, bound to this grief
with no name.

Espantos #603

Descubra as diferenças / Spot the differences

Ditto #434

Intelligence is the capacity to know what we are doing and instinct is just instinct. The results are about the same.

--Will Cuppy

Primavera #111

Com ou sem vírus a primavera acontece

With or without viruses Spring happens

Palavras lidas #453

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, 1445-1450, by Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464)

The Dogs in Dutch Paintings
by David Graham

How shall I not adore them, snoozing
right through the Annunciation? They inhabit
the outskirts of every importance, sprawl
dead center in each oblivious household.

They’re digging at fleas or snapping at scraps,
dozing with noble abandon while a boy
bells their tails. Often they present their rumps
in the foreground of some martyrdom.

What Christ could lean so unconcernedly
against a table leg, the feast above continuing?
Could the Virgin in her joy match this grace
as a hound sagely ponders an upturned turtle?

No scholar at his huge book will capture
my eye so well as the skinny haunches,
the frazzled tails and serene optimism
of the least of these mutts, curled

in the corners of the world’s dazzlement.

Coisas que não mudam #541

Aprende-se muito com gatos,

especialmente acerca de comportamento humano :-D

Primavera #110

Frias manhãs de primavera

Cold spring mornings

Primavera #109

New beginnings

Recomeços

Espantos #602

These two live on the back door of the library

Palavras lidas #452

LXXXI.

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen--
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

--William Shakespeare

Ditto #433

I like poems where you don’t really know whether to laugh or cry when you read them.

--X.J. Kennedy

Caprichos #582

Turim

Palazzo Reale

Retirado do contexto #274

Here's to old friendships

Coisas que não mudam #540

Sob os céus carregados de Paris:

a Notre Dame

e o Sacré Coeur.

Caprichos #581

Crepe de champignons a la provençale... a Paris!

Caprichos #580

I live in the UK for three years now and only the third time around did I learn there is a Pancake Day. More! The said day is associated with the religious calendar. It's always on Shrove Tuesday as it's the last day to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before embarking on lent. No need for justification... let the pancakes come!

Vivo no Reino Unido há três anos e só à terceira é que soube que há um Dia das Panquecas. Mais! O dito dia está associado ao calendário religioso! Acontece sempre na terça feira de carnaval por ser o último dia em que se podem usar ingredientes ricos (ovos, leite e açúcar) antes de se embarcar na quaresma. Sem justificações... venham elas!

Coisas que não mudam #539

Life is!

Primavera #108

Pockets of spring

Numa sala perto de mim #428

1917 (2019) is a super realistic war movie filmed in a single shot. From inside the trenches into the front line with the associated dangers. The war story is not particularly different from any other, but the perspective is unique. 

The big names of the movie (Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, and Andrew Scott) have very little screen time and often play the older and cynical characters that wars are known for... those who actually fight are young, naïve, and gullible; sent to the war front because they are at the top of their physical ability but also because they actually believe they can change the world.

Palavras lidas #451

It’s the Fifties
by Anita Pulier

At about six pm my father
exits the F train,
walks four long blocks home.

Arrives smiling, weary.
Removes his rumpled suit,
crooked tie.

Mom in an apron,
gently shoos us away,
while two martinis on a tray
slosh from kitchen to porch.

Before dinner,
before questions
about homework and tests,

two martinis (each with an olive)
create a filigreed space
on a louvered porch in Queens
defining so much more than evening.

Ditto #432

I have always lived on waterfronts. If you live on the edge of an enormous mountain or an enormous body of water, it’s harder to think of yourself as being so important.

--Heather McHugh

Numa sala perto de mim #427

The Two Popes (2019) tells a story of a meeting of two old men facing important decisions with non-negligible consequences. Wonderfully written scenes, some with humor and wit, and some solemn and dark. Remarkable acting by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, both capable of truly moving moments. Because of the recent nature of documented events, much of the movie is faithful to well known facts. We will never know if some of the backstage scenes ever happened, but the poetic license in interpreting the underlying agreement of Ratzinger and Bergoglio comes out in good light and not necessarily in apologetic form of the centuries old institution that both represent. Overall it's a very well done movie.

Coisas que não mudam #538

Ora pois! / Yeah that must be!

Inverno #62

Sobrevoando os Pirinéus este fim de semana

Overflying the Pyrenees this past weekend

Caprichos #579

Bopan en Rambla Catalunya

Palavras lidas #450

The Day After Valentine’s

by Faith Shearin

Love is cheaper now: fifty cent stuffed animals,
deflated balloons that declare I love you

but not that much. Chocolates melting
in their thin plastic hearts. Holidays are

arbitrary pressure, aisles of red light.
I am sad the day after anything

but expired love is worse than
old Halloween or faded Easter. The bins

of passed over kittens and hollow
chocolate flowers like stubs from a movie

I saw with a boy who forgot my name.
The one who told jokes that weren’t funny,

the one who was handsome but dumb. All that
old love on sale: less valuable but never free.

Foi neste dia #355 (269)

From The Writer's Almanac

_____________

Valentine's Day

The holiday was named after an early Christian priest, St. Valentine, who was martyred on February 14 in 269 A.D.

(...) The legend maintains that due to a shortage of enlistments, Emperor Claudius II forbade single men to get married in an effort to bolster his struggling army. Seeing this act as a grave injustice, Valentine performed clandestine wedding rituals in defiance of the emperor. Valentine was discovered, imprisoned, and sentenced to death by beheading. While awaiting his fate in his cell, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with the daughter of a prison guard, who would come and visit him. On the day of his death, Valentine left a note for the young woman professing his undying devotion signed “Love from your Valentine.”

Conselhos úteis #16

 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Palavras lidas #449

Death Again
by Jim Harrison

Let's not get romantic or dismal about death.
Indeed it's our most unique act along with birth.
We must think of it as cooking breakfast,
it's that ordinary. Break two eggs into a bowl
or break a bowl into two eggs. Slip into a coffin
after the fluids have been drained, or better yet,
slide into the fire. Of course it's a little hard
to accept your last kiss, your last drink,
your last meal about which the condemned
can be quite particular as if there could be
a cheeseburger sent by God. A few lovers
sweep by the inner eye, but it's mostly a placid
lake at dawn, mist rising, a solitary loon
call, and staring into the still, opaque water.
We'll know as children again all that we are
destined to know, that the water is cold
and deep, and the sun penetrates only so far.

Ditto #431

I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any — after all, most people are unhappy, don’t you think? Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.

--Philip Larkin

Foi neste dia #354 (1886)

Há 134 anos em Santo Ovídio, Eça de Queiroz casava com Emília de Castro Pamplona, 12 anos mais nova.

Acerca de encontrar uma futura esposa, Eça escreveu em 1884 a Ramalho Ortigão:

"Eu precisava de uma mulher serena, inteligente, com uma certa fortuna (não muita), de carácter firme sob um carácter meigo, – que me adoptasse como se adopta uma criança; que me pagasse o grosso das minhas dívidas, me obrigasse a levantar a certas horas cristãs – e não quando os outros almoçam – que me alimentasse com simplicidade e higiene, que me impusesse um trabalho diurno e salutar, e que, quando eu começasse a chorar pela lua, ma prometesse – até eu a esquecer… Esta doce criatura salvaria um artista – e faria uma daquelas obras de caridade que outrora levava gente ao Calendário. Mas ai! Onde está esta criatura ideal?"

Numa sala perto de mim #426

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) tells a lovely children's tale of a girl witch Kiki, and her black cat Jiji, who leave her parents' place to a new city so she can be a witch in training after she turns 13. Kiki adapts well to the new environment cherishing the excitement of adventure but also experiencing some trouble. Jiji is just great and he has the best lines!

Rather surprised with myself, as I don't quite like animation in general, or anime in particular. Maybe it's just a particular selection of Studio Ghibli, or maybe I'm just getting soft...

Coisas bonitas #25

Lua cheia / Full moon

Retirado do contexto #273

Almoço / Lunch

Conselhos úteis #16

Caprichos #578

Ele não planeava dormir

só encostar-se na superfície fofa

mas foi mais forte que ele

e bateu mesmo uma sorna

Caprichos #577

Middle Eastern food

Al Bader, in Coventry

Primavera #107

As árvores por aqui ainda despidas de folhas

mas os narcisos amarelos já estão cá fora!

Palavras lidas #448

Cats

by Eleanor Fargeon

Cats sleep, anywhere, 

Any table, any chair 

Top of piano, window-ledge, 

In the middle, on the edge, 

Open drawer, empty shoe, 

Anybody's lap will do, 

Fitted in a cardboard box, 

In the cupboard, with your frocks- 

Anywhere! 

They don't care! 

Cats sleep anywhere.

Ditto #430

If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

--Ronald Reagan