um poema de John Ash

A Long Encounter

Only the dead don’t know
what heaven's like. For the rest
extrapolation is possible.

To meet someone for the first time
and immediately adore them, as if
they were the sun, would be one instance.

I don’t mean you should fall in love
with this person, simply that when they speak
from the far end of a littered table

you should know you have entered a new country,
and its landscape, architecture and songs
will continue to embrace and fascinate you

through long years. An avenue has opened
and its trees are pricked with lights.
There is nothing you can’t afford, if what

is expended is sympathy. These people
are to be treasured and celebrated
as if each were a public holiday,—

the planting of the first harvest
after a long and terrible voyage,
the construction of the first house in a wilderness.


John Ash. Disbelief. Carcanet (1987)