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.

 

Pot Roast

 

 Pot Roast

by Mark Strand (Famous American Poet)

 

I gaze upon the roast,

that is sliced and laid out

on my plate,

and over it

I spoon the juices

of carrot and onion.

And for once I do not regret

the passage of time.

 

I sit by a window

that looks

on the soot-stained brick of buildings

and do not care that I see

no living thing—not a bird,

not a branch in bloom,

not a soul moving

in the rooms

behind the dark panes.

These days when there is little

to love or to praise

one could do worse

than yield

to the power of food.

So I bend

 

to inhale

the steam that rises

from my plate, and I think

of the first time

I tasted a roast

like this.

It was years ago

in Seabright,

Nova Scotia;

my mother leaned

over my dish and filled it

and when I finished

filled it again.

I remember the gravy,

its odor of garlic and celery,

and sopping it up

with pieces of bread.

 

And now

I taste it again.

The meat of memory.

The meat of no change.

I raise my fork

and I eat.

 

"Pot Roast" by Mark Strand from New Selected Poems. © Knopf, 2007

 Today I offer you a poem to eat. What are your best memories of food?

Eating is something we all do. Sometimes the experience can be wholly gratifying. Most of the time we barely remember doing it, especially when we are in a party. This poem reminds me how powerful and evocative this little daily ritual can be, especially when one is alone on a winter evening with no one around to cheer you up. You are then having a date with the food and the food tastes more delicious than ever.    A plate of pot roast brings back memories of the first time Strand tasted the meal...of his mother serving him a second helping. While everything around him seems bleak, the "power of food"...the "meat of memory" provides him with sustenance.

Food memories are inescapable. They are chosen for us, given flavor and meaning before we are old enough to learn the names of ingredients. As we age, our tastes may change or we may move far from home, but those defining meals are kept in the deepest pocket of our hearts, thrust forward only occasionally, but with such force that it knocks the wind out of us for a brief moment.

This poem wastes no time filling our plates. Within the first six lines, pan juices are spooned over a hot roast, and we learn, without hesitation, of a meal’s ability to provide utter contentment.

We continue eating, inhaling the scent and aroma of spices, allowing each bite to transport us deeper into memory, to the first time we tasted the dish. For the poet, this means Nova Scotoia, but we carry with us a country, a city or village, and home where treasured family meals were first experienced. Wherever we are, we share “the meat of memory”, a meal that reminds us of not the house or the surrounds which may have changed, but of ourselves. So, at the table we reminisce, raise a fork in honor of the meal we tasted and a happy return to the table of childhood.