Souvenir of the Ancient World

 

Souvenir of the Ancient World

 

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

 

Translated from the Portuguese by Mark Strand

 

Clara strolled in the garden with the children.

The sky was green over the grass,

the water was golden under the bridges,

other elements were blue and rose and orange,

a policeman smiled, bicycles passed,

a girl stepped onto the lawn to catch a bird,

the whole world—Germany, China—all was quiet around Clara.

The children looked at the sky: it was not forbidden.

Mouth, nose, eyes were open. There was no danger.

What Clara feared were the flu, the heat, the insects.

Clara feared missing the eleven o'clock trolley:

She waited for letters slow to arrive,

She couldn't always wear a new dress. But she strolled in the garden, in the morning!

They had gardens, they had mornings in those days!

 

Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a native-born Brazilian, is universally recognized as the finest and most accessible modern Portugese-language poet and, along with Pablo Neruda, a poet of the common man, writing of home, family, friends, and love.

 

 Though this was written more than 50 years ago, the feelings it convey have a ring of life in the times of Covid. This poem doesn't speak ill of the trauma besieged on those times. But it gently draws our attention to good mornings of yester years. May be these trying times will change something inside man and he will begin to appreciate the goodness around us.

"The whole world—Germany, China—all was quiet around Clara.
The children looked at the sky: it was not forbidden."

Carlos Drummond de Andrade was a communist and for some time was the editor of "Tribuna Popular" published by the the Brazilian Communist Party. So it's not about the lack of freedom in the political sense that he's talking about. The poem was written during the Second World War. Brazilian soldiers were fighting on the side of the Allies, mostly on the Italian front. Clara's husband must be a Brazilian soldier and she must be waiting for letters from him (slow to arrive). The poem makes a reference to Germany as the aggressor and China as a victim nation of Japanese occupation.

In most of Europe during WW2, children couldn't look at the sky without fear because of frequent bombing and war planes flying past.

"They had gardens, they had mornings in those days!" is perhaps a reference to the peaceful times in Brazil (because the country was not at war; only its soldiers were fighting in Europe), while the Brazilian soldiers, including Clara's husband, had neither gardens nor mornings.

Courtesy : Kerala Varma for  explicating some aspects of the poem

 

from LOOKING FOR POETRY: POEMS BY CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE AND RAFAEL ALBERTI AND SONGS FROM THE QUECHUA by Mark Strand, copyright © 2002 by Mark Strand.