To Remember Life Poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade

How to remember without suffering?
to recollect without horror?
The sound has transported me
to that kingdom where life does not exist
and I remain inert without feeling.

How to repeat, next day after next day
the unfinished story,
how to bear the image of harsh things
of tomorrow with the harsh things of today?

How to protect myself from wounds
that keep the event that caused them
always present in me?
Any event that brings back to the earth
its purple madness.
And most of all that wound I inflict on myself
every hour, something
from the innocent I no longer am.

Nothing answers, life has turned to stone.