WORDS TO PRINCE EPAMINONDAS, A LAD WITH A GREAT FUTURE Poem by Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos

Strip yourself of truths
the great before the small
your own before any others
dig a pit and bury them
at your side
first those that they imposed on you when you were still a docile child
and had no stain except for that of a strange name
then those that as you grew you painfully put on
the truth of bread the truth of tears
for you are neither flower nor mourning nor consolation nor star
then those you won with your semen
where the morning raises high an empty mirror
and a child cries between clouds and an abyss
then those they're going to place above your portrait
when you provide them with the great remembrance
they all expect so anxiously expecting it of you
Then nothing, just you and your silence
and veins of coral tearing at our wrists
And now, my lord, we can proceed across
the naked plains
your body with clouds upon its shoulders
my hands full with a white beard
There, there will be no delay no shelter no arrival
just a square of fire above our heads
a street of stone to the end of the lights
and the silence of death as we pass