Poem for Today: The Roosters Will Crow ~ Cecilia Meireles
The Roosters Will Crow
~ Cecilia Meireles
(A lovely site devoted to Meireles’ work is here.)
The roosters will crow when we die,
And a soft breeze, with delicate hands,
Will touch the fringes, the silken
Shrouds.
And the sleep of night will cloud
The clear windows.
And the crickets, far off, will saw silences:
Stalks of crystal, cold long solitudes,
And the enormous perfume of trees.
Ah, what sweet moon will look upon our calm face,
Even yet more calm than her great mirror
Of silver.
What thick freshness upon our hair,
As free as the fields at sunrise.
From the mist of dawn,
One last star
Will ascend: pale.
What immense peace, without human voice,
Without the lip of wolfish faces,
Without hatred, without love, without anything!
Like dark lost prophets,
Only the dogs will talk through the valleys.
Strong questions. Vast pauses.
We shall lie in death
In that soft contour
Of a shell in the water.
