Epilogue

Epilogue

 

The sound of tibiae against stones.

Great bones cast by the wind

in the desert like the last dice

on the table.

Fed, the vultures. 

Dead, in their turn,

Because there’s nothing to eat.

 

Horse skeletons rolling,

like leaves, on the ground.

The compact, cracked matter,

vitrified calcium,

collides and breaks,

collides and hurts in the sharpness

and throughout

its affliction

it almost sings,

one would say it sings, but is there

sound without ears?

Sorrow without voice?

 

Oh, the horses of the Mediterranean,

light as steam,

children of the water,

golden as the sea

at sunset.

Unattainable creatures even

when mounted,

even when led

to the line of slaughter.

 

Not wild nor secretive: indifferent.

Those eyes connected by nerves

to the brutish centres of survival,

carrying images of food,

of the fountains and of the female and of winter,

so as to prepare the movement.

 

Those eyes do nothing else,

they do not engage in an expression

or in a summoning. Nothing.

They hold the end of everything and the beginning

in the great globular mass.

And because they gaze at nothing,

nothing permeates them.

 

For they do not see dying. Those eyes

go through battle as they go through

the grass in the meadows.

They still carry the waves, the musical

scale of the tides.

They dance in war. With muscles

very delicately trained,

having asked the birds for the secret

of fine elevation like Nijinsky.

 

Porticoes of beauty, those horses

that, wounded, do not produce

a single cry, so concentrated,

so incandescent

as the one who burns alone

and does not wish

to even be heard. 

 

They do not know death.

For a brief moment, they can tell the absence
of that weight

they used to carry on their backs, the naked feet

joined to their navel,

of the skin poorly covered by garments

of weathered leather,

the diminished sex oscillating

against the coarse manes.

 

Afterwards they themselves fall.

In their correct manner of falling.

Silent, they fall on the dust

and delicately the story ends.

Still, for an instant, quivers

something rosy shining  tall,

pearl or drool, the remains of carrion,

like satin,

on the beak of a scavenger.

 

Hélia Correia, “Epílogo”, Um Bailarino na Batalha. Lisboa: Relógio d’Água, 2018. Translation for this website by Rita Faria

I like this poem because it is cinema translated into poetry. The first stanza conjures up a scene in slow motion (“Great bones cast by the wind”). Before us there is a dry, inhospitable desert where only “tibiae”, which the wind has cast like dice against stones, and vultures lie. The second stanza informs us that the bones are “horse skeletons” which roll like leaves on the ground, in slow motion, delicately, and lightly. We will understand soon enough that these horses have died in the battlefield, indifferent to their destiny, and that we are thus approaching a scene close to its ending.

I find this to be an impressionist poem because it is based on an “impression” comprising three aspects: vision, sound and movement.

The visual impression seems to derive from the many instances of “matter” and corporeality we find in the poem and which meet their death in the total absence of metaphysics or euphemistic philosophies that may explain it – there are references to “tibiae”, skeletons, “vitrified calcium” which breaks, a “great globular mass” which gazes at nothing and therefore “does not engage in an expression.” To engage in expressions is a human chore that depends on cognitive interpretations which have very little to do with the realm of matter. The human gaze gazes at something, but these horses gaze at nothing, that is, they exclusively see the world in its corporeal reality. They know nothing of “things in heaven and earth” and thus “nothing permeates them.” Their indifference, however, is better than human destiny, for humans suffer and die, whereas these horses simply die. The net result is the same.

The act of gazing – the horses’ indifferent gaze, the gaze of the one who looks at the horses – is essential to this poem. One should note the demonstrative pronouns of the fifth and sixth stanzas – “those eyes” (the tripartite system of demonstrative pronouns in Portuguese has little equivalence in English). These pronouns evince a gaze which progressively distances itself from the horses, much like a film camera which zooms out so that the viewer can take in the full magnitude of the scene. Furthermore, the poem ends with a brutal visual impression pertaining to the indifference of matter – that which shines “rosy and tall” is nothing but carrion from the horses of the Mediterranean on the beak of a vulture. It manages to be beautiful and delicate – it shines “like satin” and it can even be mistaken for pearls. It is, however, the human gaze that impresses beauty upon sole matter, which in turn is unaware of the subjectivity of beauty and ugliness.

Sound is another impressionist aspect of this poem, or rather, the absence of sound, for it is the hard-hitting silence of death which impacts the reader. The first line does mention the “sound of tibiae against stones” but silence is nevertheless promptly established. No other sound is uttered – whilst the horse in Guernica seems to be crying, these beautiful golden horses “do not produce/ a single cry” in their indifference, even when they fall on the dust and die. The stunning lines describing the brief moment when the horses can tell the absence of their riders (the first ones to die, freeing the horses from their load) make it clear that this is a battlefield (“[f]or a brief moment, they can tell the absence/ of that weight/ they used to carry on their backs, of the naked feet/ joined to their navel”) – there are no accounts of screaming, of belligerent or suffering cries, of pleas, of attempts to explain or narrate the battle. These would do no good anyway; there is no possible explanation, no ulterior, prophetic reasons to account for the death of the horses. Their bones roll on the ground like leaves, tossed in the wind like dice, and their death is random, a matter of luck or lack thereof, not the result of a messianic destiny. It is therefore the indifferent matter that dies, eliminating the need to produce a single sound. In another life, sound would have existed – indeed, the horses still carry the “musical/scale of the tides”, which means they are musical beings and there cannot be music without sound. However, now the poem itself doubts the existence of sound, which is tantamount to doubting the very existence of humanity; the “matter” could be said to almost sing but the modal verb here eliminates doubt – in actuality, it does not sing. Thus, is there “sorrow without voice”? These lines insinuate that what is at stake is not really (or not only) the death of the horses, but the death of humanity itself.

Speaking of human – although the poem makes very few references to a human presence, the latter hovers over the lines like a ghost. One of these phantom presences is the aforementioned absence of weight from the horses’ backs, which also means the loss of humanity, as fragile and ephemeral as the feeling of a horse temporarily relieved from the load of their rider’s body. Human presence is also conveyed by means of the passive voice applied to the horses in the third stanza: “Unattainable creatures even/ when mounted,/ even when led/ to the line of slaughter.” The horses are not subjects endowed with agency, but are instead passive recipients of human actions such as war. 

Finally, the poem is impressionist because of the cinematic movement it describes. Before us the light, delicate symmetry of these horses unfolds, horses who truly dance in the midst of battle because they have asked the birds “for the secret/ of fine elevation like Nijinsky.” The corporeality of the horses is reiterated by the image of their muscles which have been very delicately trained, and which appear before us as elastic and prominent as those of a dancer on stage – like Nijinsky. The horses dance and when they die, they simply stop dancing and fall. It is easy to imagine great Greek horses (“from the Mediterranean”, let us remember) whose “fearful symmetry” falls delicately and correctly, in slow motion and impossibly beautiful. Their death is first and foremost the death of beauty, of “porticoes of beauty.” Secondly, it is also the death of the men who ride them. The cinematography of the poem therefore exalts the impossible beauty of the golden horses of the Mediterranean whilst signalling the death of humanity, the aforementioned invisible presence in the poem.

When the horses die, their flesh is torn apart and devoured in its satin delicacy by vultures, which brings us back to the sound of tibiae against stones. Dust which to dust returns, full of sound and fury and not much else (in actual fact, and in the case of the horses, not much sound and not much fury either – these are futile human attributes, “signifying nothing” when humans disappear).

Rita Faria

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Rita Faria is a professor at the Catholic University of Portugal. She doesn’t know how to do anything else apart from reading and writing and wants to do nothing else apart from reading and writing. Besides this, she enjoys horror films, vampires, ghosts and zombies in general and thinks the Portuguese language is the most fun in the whole world.