The ship of mirrors Poem by Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos

The ship of mirrors
doesn't sail, it gallops

Its sea is a forest
serving as level plane

At dusk its flanks
mirror the sun and moon

That's why time loves
to lie down with it

Shipowners don't like
its clear and bright route

(To someone in motion
it looks stationary)

When it reaches the city
no wharf gives it shelter

Its bilge brings nothing
it departs with nothing

Voices and heavy air
are all it transports

And a species of door
in its mirrored mast

Its ten thousand captains
all have the same face

The same dark belt
the same rank and office

When one man revolts
there are ten thousand mutineers

(The way objects are reflected
in the eyes of a fly)

And when one of them ascends
and his body climbs the masts
and he scans the ocean depths

The whole ship gallops
(like the stars in space)

From the world's beginning
to the world's end