for Juan Vicente Melo
I
the eye climbs the cluster of columns at each new height
a new panorama unfolds until we reach the summit
which is a star of converging ogives
from
there
the gaze slips down attracted
by a glitter of jewels that stand out against the darkness
and then the ogives'
clustered colors
follow
each
other
offering
from the depths of darkeness
kaleidoscopic configuration
the eye does not rest
each line
coherent dazzling constellation |
II
I return the following day
the cathedral has changed
fixed immobile
a stony projection
its solidity blocking
the eye's passage
the stone remains unchanged but no longer does it say the same thing the word
that intends to endure like the stone
will it also lose its substance?
will it also be a gray wall immobile blocking the passage to the eye?
Ill
I return to the show of impressionist painting
in the center of the salon
I am welcomed by an enormous canvas by Manet
which directs at me the sad eyes and weary
gaze
of the aging prostitute
who has seen too much
but I am unable
to regain the vision
that only yesterday
filled me with light and air
though I am standing before the same canvas of Berthe Morissot
IV
I return once more
in quest of the cathedral I find a third one innocent
sun-drenched
neither ecstatic nor harsh
simple ingenuous stone
bathed in sunlight
surrounded by gardens
on whose benches children mothers old people and couples
rest
chat
and wait for the bus
V
I see I saw I will see
I don't see now what I saw yesterday I remember
that yesterday I saw
but now I cannot
I try
to see again
it is impossible
I only see
another detail
in another way with other eyes
VI
I enter the cathedral
now
its ogives trace an immense gray sunflower of stone
its borders expand filling time and space I am a prisoner in the center of this endless spinning that spins along taking each eternal moment with it
and I at its center spin dazzled by this spinning of successive worlds
VII
a useless exertion that of the word and of the stone
made to endure which spins around me
and drags me forward
everything ends and nothing is repeated but you and I are fated
to go on seeking
a word that will perhaps survive so that my eye
may be reborn in your gaze and the sunflower keep on
spinning
toward nothing