Scotoma Poem by Fernando Pinto do Amaral

I don't know what a spirit is. No one
knows in depth the light of his own abyss
as at night the wind opens
the infinite doors of an empty
house, one by one. My voice
tries to respond to another voice,
to the lament of ghosts celebrating
their black mass, their eternal
disquiet. In a forgotten place
of the damaged city I listen still
to an oracle's whisper,
to the feverish farewell prolonged
by the dying rattle of the clock's hands,
their ferocious rhythm, the pulsing
of my exiled blood remembering
a divine shelter. Our father who art
between heaven and earth, take me
to the precipice where my soul wintered
and teach me how to burst through the dawn
as if my face were
shrapnel from your face
that would miraculously melt
these crystal icicles
unable to be tears.

Translated by Ana Hudson