Wallace Stevens: "The planet on the table" / "O planeta na mesa": Trad. por Paulo Henriques Britto

O planeta na mesa


Ariel gostou de ter escrito seus poemas.
Eram de um tempo relembrado
Ou de algo visto que o agradara.

Outros feitos do sol
Eram agrura e tumulto
E o arbusto maduro retorcido.

Seu ser e o sol eram um só
E seus poemas, embora feitos de seu ser,
Não eram menos feitos do sol.

Que perdurassem não era importante.
O importante era que portassem
Algum traço ou caráter,

Uma afluência, mesmo quase imperceptível,
Na pobreza de suas palavras,
Do planeta do qual faziam parte.






The planet on the table


Ariel was glad he had written his poems.
They were of a remembered time
Or of something seen that he liked.

Other makings of the sun
Were waste and welter
And the ripe shrub writhed.

His self and the sun were one
And his poems, although makings of his self,
Were no less makings of the sun.

It was not important that they survive.
What mattered was that they should bear
Some lineament or character,

Some affluence, if only half-perceived,
In the poverty of their words,
Of the planet of which they were part.

STEVENS, Wallace. "The planet on the table" / "O planeta na mesa". In:_____. O imperador do sorvete e outros poemas. Trad. por Paulo Henriques Britto. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2017.