Tea with Cátia

Past week: enjoying a special moment with Cátia. Drinking tea and bringing home new treasures: lovely postcards and a new book with the prettiest botanical illustrations.

For C.W.B

 

For C.W.B

I.
Let us live in a lull of the long winter winds
Where the shy, silver-antlered reindeer go
On dainty hoofs with their white rabbit friends
Amidst the delicate flowering snow.

All of our thoughts will be fairer than doves.
We will live upon wedding-cake frosted with sleet.
We will build us a house from two red tablecloths
And wear scarlet mittens on both hands and feet.

II.
Let us live in the land of the whispering trees;
Alder and aspen and popular and birch;
Singing our prayers in a pale, sea-green breeze
With star-flower rosaries and moss blankets for church.

All of our dreams will be clearer than glass,
Clad in the water or sun as you wish,
We will watch the white feet of the young morning pass,
And dine upon honey and small shiny fish.

III.
Let us live where the twilight lives after dark,
In the deep drowsy blue, let us make a home.
Let us meet in the cool evening grass with a stork,
And a whistle of willow played by a gnome.

Half-asleep, half-awake, we shall hear, we shall know
The soft “Miserere” the wood-swallow tolls,
We will wander away where the wild raspberries grow,
And eat them for tea from two lily-white bowls.

A poem from Elisabeth Bishop

…

Para C.W.B

I

Vivamos na acalmia dos longos ventos de inverno

onde a tímida rena de chifres prateados anda

sobre delicadas patas com os seus amigos coelhos brancos

pelo meio da fina e florescente neve.

Todos os nossos pensamentos serão mais delicados que pombas.

Viveremos sobre um bolo de noiva coberto de saraiva.

Construiremos a nossa casa com duas toalhas de mesa vermelhas.

E usaremos mitenes escarlates nas mãos e nos pés.

II

Vivamos no país das árvores sussurrantes,

o amieiro e a aia e o choupo e o vidoeiro,

entoando preces através de uma brisa pálida, verde-mar,

num templo de rosários de flores e cantos de musgo.

Todos os nossos sonhos serão mais límpidos que vidro.

Vestidos de água ou de sol, como desejares,

veremos passar os brancos pés da manhã jovem

e jantaremos mel e pequeno peixes cintilantes.

III

Vivamos onde o crepúsculo vive depois do anoitecer,

no profundo, sonolento azul, façamos a nossa casa.

Encontremo-nos na erva fresca da tardinha com uma cegonha

e um assobio de salgueiro, tocado por um gnomo.

Meio adormecidos, meio despertos, ouviremos, conheceremos

o suave “Miserere” que a andorinha do bosque toca.

Vaguearemos até onde crescem as framboesas silvestres

e comê-las-emos ao chá e duas taças brancas com lírios.

Um poema de Elisabeth Bishop

Waltz Fall

18th of September 2016

The gold tones of Autumn are still few, but I know that it already started. Rain shall fall and wind shall whistle. Leaves shall immerse into an effortless dance; and my recondite thoughts shall join this furtive waltz.

Poems from Marianne Moore and Elisabeth Bishop

Words started to fall and shaping an affable nest in my hands. Pages immersed and become profound as a forest. A deer woke up and cautiously marched until reach a niche of my bare skin to caress it.

My Life is made of unexpected consonances that make me smile once in a while. Sometimes, words are stollen from me and, ever and again, restituted. Thank you Flaneur for this precious gift.

Weakness

“Let everything that’s been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.”

The Enclosed Garden

11th of September 2016

 We hold in ourselves a suspend place called the enclosed garden. Is fairness is made of sparkling roses, gentle moss and elegant little ivies. Our soul knows keenly this place, full enchantments, because every time she faces a war, it is here that she returns to revive. Mine has been there for a while: bathing in roses, eating the magic from starlights — healing. Now, she breathes profoundly, she is genuine and pure again. She is not covered with the mantel of fears that we all wear. She let it fall into the floor to become moss, and than earth.  She wears now a translucent dress made of hope, mercy and crystalline grace.

 

Where are you going, Little Princess?

                                                                                        7th of September 2016

Dear Diary,

This morning, memories of my infancy flood through my eyes  – my grandfather appeared to me with his tenderness and I heard him call for me: “Little Princess, where are you going?”. I was less than 5 years old, my feet were small and fragile. Around me was the little paradise raised by my grandmother and grandfather’s hands. A vivid bougainvillea climbed through the walls with gracefulness: it was so immense and so utterly beautiful to gaze it. Peaceful I was in those days, I was part of everything and I wasn’t apart from nothing. I was fearless and pure. I didn’t felt emptiness or loneliness because I was bounded to a secret imaterial world where such a thing didn’t exist. Those days of joy where my grandfather father’s hand was still reachable are felt today with affection and nostalgia.

Butterflies Were Made to Fly

I spent my Sunday drinking tons of warming tea, sighing for Autumn and preparing orders. My butterfly bundle already found a new home! and I am so relieved, because I know it will be treasured.

 

Carmilla

“For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu