Vistas of Death I

"Mas essa dor da vida que devora
A ânsia de glória, o dolorido afã...
A dor no peito emudecera ao menos
Se eu morresse amanhã!"

Álvares de Azevedo

The clock melts on the wall

And in the room no more sound

But a strange frequency of silence

As if a crowd of ultrasonic bats

Went mute but still cried.

All the windows would close

And the world would be alien,

And maybe the night would

Become day, but not for me.

Engulfed by endless abstraction

The whole reality would bow

And maybe a sigh of adieu

If I were to die right now.

Would I have time to sense

The vanishing of all that’s real,

Or would it be fast and lethal

Like a thunder, and my silent pain

Would become the scream of nature?

Maybe I would close my eyes

As if to hide my own weakness

Or stare vaguely into the void

Until a strange hand shut them.

Drowned in meaningless woe

I would share a tear of atonement

And imagine my mother crying

If I were to die in this moment.

Maybe a line or whole poem

Would float in the air, maybe Hamlet,

Too sleep and to dream, O how death

Comes so awfully quick and rips

All meaning in its hidden essence.

A moment of ultimate light

Before the vacuum of space

Maybe a scream of dissolving,

Maybe a cry of annulling.

Or maybe a joy of resting

Spiritual fulfilling decay,

To rest, O rest everlasting

From the pains of dying each day.