A fine wine needs to mature. It requires time, many suns and moons in fact. And the course of the seasons will give it, at last, the color of blood and the flavor of life. No more and no less…
This is the feeling I got when I read the new poems issued by Anderson Braga Horta in his book “De Viva Voz” [Thesaurus, Brasilia, 2012]. I had come upon truly ripened poetry, golden as the wheat fields of Eugênio de Castro, with its wind breezing along the dancing stalks.
It is only natural that the poetry of today’s youths be a tad unripe. That it be agitated by unbridled emotions, like an underage wine that would burst any leather flask. Or it presents itself sickly sweet, lacking the essence and tang of an aged sherry.
As Napoleão Valadares wrote in the forward of the book, “Every one of Anderson Braga Horta’s poems is refined. Not in the sense of being exalted or celebrated, but in a clean and purified sense of the word. You will find poetry in his poems, just pure poetry.”
Oh how good it is to grow old! Let the storms tear down a few old branches, and may the auras of twilight serenate the restless sap until the time comes to flower and harvest… If I were to die tomorrow, I would say goodbye to the vintage in advance.
The poet is well aware of this when he says:
I am a tree and I am a bird.
I have the will of wings
and I lay down roots.
(ARIETAS)
He knows that haste is beauty’s enemy:
Whether in sea or snow,
do not haste, heart,
rose and hippocampus will soon,
soon meet
(MEDITAÇÃO)
Only fleeting time allows us to learn in its essence the true meaning of life, without excluding its dark nights:
To abide by the Law of my Lord,
From the blackness where I am to go, I forge a flame,
From the disasters I once was, I am born a flower.
(CAVALEIRO)
When wheat ripens, it can be harvested and made into fine flour and flavorful breads on the tables of men and God’s altar. But it must be given time to crystalize:
Melting pot of blood and water.
A sun shot through my heart.
(DE SÚBITO)
Time will give way to the eternal. It will pass. But milestones will be left behind in this life. . Nothing that brings about fear or foreboding:
Your day will soon end,
but be advised that shadow
has its own enchantments.
And thus, be without hurry
and attentive to your duties
before you get pounced on,
carpe noctem.
(CARPE VITAM)
On the front cover of the book, an image of Sisyphus over a circle of light; the disfigured stepping stones; on his shoulders, only night:
Morning breaks, senile, scattered in rubble.
Mid-day is lost between the nimbus. Darkness
catches the day, knowing ashes and sepulchers.
The poet carries the night on his shoulders.
(SÍSIFO)
Blessed be the times, for they have given us a great poet!
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