SONG OF PLACES Poem by Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão

Since places so often live in Man
and men so often live in places
that live in them, we can say
that Socrates' jail, since Socrates
was in it, wasn't a jail,
as Seneca said in a letter to Helvia.

And so each place shows us
a clear and boundless life,
while Time goes back and forth, concealing
that it is brief and ambiguous,
the giver of death and life.

And a place only ends
because the man is mortal
in whom the place lived.