r u y v e n t u r a

r u y v e n t u r a

translation: b r i a n s t r a n g

How to Leave a House

books—apartment

building—birth

ache—equilibrium

house—earth
	a) the arch chooses whomever seeks the house descends until it is very close to the earth b) two sacks of coal dust the carpenter’s shop on the corner no one seems to live here there is plenty of time c) god or child? I encounter in the stone above all the hand and the heat of whomever breathes d) two or three tiles lightly broken the instant a wall encircling the garden e) the rain transports what is left of the city the bus climbing until it reaches the door f) suddenly two children cry it is definitely on the other side of the reeds
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door—place
	tonight it opens over the road the door swings to the north and to the south too far the room where a city inside a river (in a vase?) rises to the middle of the mirror ignoring the books dividing itself as if a street the only worthwhile way to save space —an acacia spreading in its radiance
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books—apartment
	the books shield the living room from the wind that at mid–afternoon blows over the whole valley the eyes close with persistence and only the voice—at sixteen kilometers— can wake up everything in the apartment over the bed the night air overtakes the blinds—almost shut an automobile starts on the road after hitting the door (there was no parking) two or three presences might come from the pine trees cut recently for another field an airplane tries to fly over these hours in the direction of the valley everything unites around the music from the garden from the pianos —from the left side of the veranda somewhere between the beach and the tiny garden
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building—birth
	right before the best place to cross to the other side of the building was not certain— a water tank, maybe an acacia two or three balconies on the last mornings of december someone reduces the foundation of the house —I remember the garden olive tree by olive tree the cement stairs the arm holding on to melancholy I decided to save the envelope in the last dresser drawer: I put our names among the objects whose significance absorbs us it is difficult to determine the resonances when at ten in the morning we abandon a city that grows I never really had a garden— too close or too far at which we could arrive, the image grows every fifteen days though the trips would be just the beginning of a birth the door opens as a line on the horizon between two rainy nights everything is in everything we belong to everything
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ache—equilibrium ∗co-translated with Elisa Brasil
	this is how one leaves a house (the house) the forks the cups the plates the bed the fire—firewood in the corner with the fireplace— the pitcher protecting the distance between the fountain and happiness, the pocketknife hidden for more than thirty years, the stove in the center of the kitchen right in front of the door window two photographs hanging on the wall remembered the ache and the equilibrium, the strangeness of having saved various gusts of wind and of mystery this was not the place of birth just a pause a window shut so long ago
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RUY VENTURA (b. 1973, Portalegre, Portugal) is a teacher near Lisbon. He has published in poetry, Architecture of Silence (Lisbon, 2000—Revelation Prize of the Association of Portuguese Writers), seven capitals of the world (Lisbon, 2003), How to Leave a House (Coimbra, 2003—Portuguese and Castilian edition), A Little More On the City (Villanueva de la Serena, Spain 2004—Portuguese and Castilian edition) and The Place, The Image (also a bilingual edition). He has translated various Spanish, French and Flemish poets into Portuguese, has written essays on contemporary Portuguese poetry, traditional poetry and toponymy and has contributed to various Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian magazines. His blog can be visited at alicerces1.blogspot.com.
BRIAN STRANG, co-editor of 26: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics, lives in Oakland and teaches English composition at San Francisco State University and Merritt College. He is the author of Incretion (Sputyen Duyvil) and machinations (a free Duration ebook) among others. i n v i s i b i l i t y, a special edition with drawings by Basil King, is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil. Recent poem/paintings can be seen at his site, Sorry Nature. His poem/paintings will be opening at Canessa Park Gallery in San Francisco on June 3rd.