Shoulders Support The World Poem by RIC BASTASA

There comes a time when we no longer say: my God.
A time of absolute purity.
A time when we no longer say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And eyes don’t cry.
And hands only weave in rough work.
And the heart is dry.

Women knock at the door in vain, don’t open it.
You stay alone, the light goes out,
and in the dark your eyes glow enormous.

-Carlos Drummond De Andrade
translated from the Portuguese by Len Sousa

You’re convinced, you no longer know suffering.
And you expect nothing from friends.

Old age matters little, what is old age?
Your shoulders support the world
and it weighs no more than a child’s hand.
The wars, famines, and talks in buildings
only prove that life goes on
and not all have freed themselves yet.
Some, finding the spectacle barbarous,
prefer (the delicates) to die.
There comes a time when there’s no point in dying.
There comes a time when life is an order.
Merely life, without perplexity.