Freesias Poem by José Tolentino Mendonça

Freesias are flowers that smell like tea
and she, at age thirty-seven, preferred them
to the usual flowers for sale
she admitted beauty but not splendor
because repetitions are sad
they soon become wise precepts
and she, at age thirty-seven,
only cared for secrets that remained secret
even when told

(in certain periods she would sleepwalk
through some forgotten door into the yard
which bordered the woods
and sometimes they had to search for her
calling out her name or with the help of dogs
already a long way from home

she had the habit of lighting fires
she then forgot about
which is also why the villagers
feared her)

an intense and troubled child
for whom no certainties existed
she never grasped the nature of domestic life

she'd tell her most beautiful discoveries
without a second thought
to someone she didn't know

Translation: 2006, Richard Zenith