To Love Poem by jia shuixing

what can a creature do, if not -
among other creatures -
to love?
to love and to forget,
to love and to mislove,
to love, to unlove, to love?
always, and even with glazed eyes, to love?

what can, I ask, the loving being do,
alone, in universal rotation, if not -
to rotate as well, and to love?
to love what the sea drags to the beach,
and what it buries, and what, on the ocean breeze,
is salt, or need of love, or just want?

to love solemnly the palms in the desert,
whatever is let go of or adored in longing,
and love the inhospitable, the rough to the touch,
a vase without a flower, an iron floor,
and the still chest, and the dreamglanced street, and a bird of prey.

this our destiny: love countless,
spread throughout the petty and the null,
unlimited giving to complete ungratefulness,
and in the empty shell of love the fearful,
patient search for more and more love.

to love our lack of love itself, and in our dryness,
to love the implicit water,
and the tacit kiss,
and the endless thirst.

(translation of Amar by brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade)