When He Awoke Again Poem by For Matilde

The long iron bridge
barrels strapped to long narrow barges
The long thin face of a holy man
The wall of heroes around the Praca
Men lean in solitariness from small windows
The girl with wild eyes plays a fugue on her yellow violin
You sit head inclined, honey flows in your eyes
How beautiful unawareness is
He sees against the sun
the glistening threads that join them
the way her mouth moves in his
It is their only freedom
Past the round nautical windows
The Islamic geometry of others
The salon of paintings; a sea battle
a lady reading by a tree in a garden in France;
The dog barking at birds that sit on colourful fruits
When he awoke she was sitting in a soft claret chair
wrapped in the morning light
that came over the top of the hill
bouncing off the whites of the crew of the old cruiser
that had cast off and was already midstream
They loved each other in the soft claret of the chair
There are marks in the mud by the river
They had crawled out of membranes
distilled into meaning and wonder
When he awoke he saw the silhouette of her face
fluttering against the golden neck of a harp
He could hear from under the eaves of the terracotta roof
the noisy sounds of swallows at work on their dry scaly nests
From the small expostcao vinhos they watched the descendant of kings
fish the river with two rods
In the night the river is full of low whispers
From the terrace
From the Giacometti chairs with striped cushions
they gaze at the crimson dance of the moon and
marvel at the distances of comets
When he awoke again
she was sitting in the soft claret chair
The warm tendrils of her fingers closed in fragrant prayer
How unaware beauty is
How difficult it is to remember and forget