Pieces (after Human Flow)
i.
they arrived in the village on foot, by the hundreds.
they arrived unwanted, dragging a child or an elder,
a sack of belongings. it was in fact a lovely place: green
mountains, little black goats on the hillside, onions, potatoes
ready to harvest, and a river too wild to cross, almost
dragging them under, against the chain of hands and
arms. it must have been autumn by then, padded
jackets squirting clear water, weight for the crossing.
that was after the bombings, but before the camps,
and before they saw the fire-colored horse, its slow
circular gallop, its sweaty flanks, its eye toward
freedom
ii.
escape by water must be the hardest.
we take our walk along the coast, doing a shoot of
abandoned boats. that one belonged to a fisherman. can't you
see the pieces of net, the scales, the skeletal fish, dried
under tongues of sun? this is almost the tropics. wooden
boards losing their red, their green, but we find a ski
boat in white and aqua, its fading plastic drifting from
some other port, some high rise shoreline . no one would
come here by high sea, skimming the waves in absolute darkness,
fearing a storm or a mother birthing in a cabin with nothing
but elbow room, and one last gulp of fresh water.
and that makes part of the story: pirates centuries gone,
a coastal guard expecting no surprises, a sleeping village
that could be awoken to plunge into the low tide, pull out
the feverish, offer the hands of a midwife
iii
to return to an abandoned city:
the women scavenge the ruins,
then shoulder the desperate tasks
of washing fluid-stained walls,
covering what is left of windows,
sweeping, stacking, or mending
the anything that can be put back
together. a lone cow walks
the streets, her bell ringing,
her udder full. war has been
the business of men, then work
of memory for someone's
children.
iv.
three Palestinian girls have gone to the beach.
there is in each, some deep harbor of hope: where to
can the boats carry them, each night on the edge
of desire, where checkpoints and gruff soldiers blur
into waves and sunsets, or a midnight café where
music churns out onto the drizzle of streets and
dancing? a tiger has gained his temporary
freedom, a non native savannah. today all rests
in the hands of the men, yet they are bound to
to borders, and barring and burning. to imagine
is to excavate in depleted fields, to unearth
all we have done to destroy
ourselves.
Miriam Adelman
War Stories
The daily underside of war slips away.
There were those who heard nothing, not even the distant
howl of wolves when their woods went up in smoke and skin
and those who missed not even the shy boys, the ones who
were dragged away, nor the rowdy who wanted to
flee when word turned to act. In some villages
there were those who held onto the commonplace:
the card game at the tavern, the habitual visit to the
dressmaker, reminded of dance halls and daughters.
There were, as there always are, those who stashed away
tidbits of food, or who picked the last apples nestled in branches,
then slipping away from the fields, handing the thin slices out
to children hiding in the grass near the train tracks. We
will never know the exact numbers: those left hidden
in attics or wine cellars, or on some tumultuous night
or in some heart that fled into madness. The stories they told
were constantly changing: in the sunshine, under the moon
or when the rain washed away some of the blood,
vestiges, ashes. The bones were more persistent, slowly
bleaching in ever-returning summer. And the names
and departures we cannot ascertain. We know only
that the most urgent lessons are the ones never learned. Easier it is
to feed the little ghouls from the cup of our hands, hover over the last of
the crumbs, tie dirty rags around mouths full of words,
nurture slowly but surely a wretched imagination that is
unable to remember, unable to forget.
Histórias de Guerra
A história cotidiana da guerra se esfuma.
Há quem não escutou nem o uivo longínquo dos lobos
quando seu bosque virou toda fumaça e pele humana.
Há quem não sentiu a falta dos tímidos rapazes, os arrastados
ou mesmo os brabos que se arrependeram quando passou-se
da palavra ao fato. Em certas cidades,
havia quem se dedicasse ao corriqueiro:
ao jogo de baralho na cantina do bairro, ou à visita costumeira
à costureira, pensando ainda no baile, ou nas filhas debutantes.
Havia, como sempre, quem escondia o escasso alimento
assim como aqueles que repartiam o último pão, ou colhiam
as maças ainda aninhadas nos galhos, saindo pelos campos a
distribuir as magras fatias entre as crianças escondidas no
capim ao lado dos trilhos. Nunca saberemos exatamente quantos:
os perseguidos escondidos no porão, ou na cava
numa noite rebelde, ou num coração refugiado na loucura.
Sempre contavam versões que mudavam: com o sol, a lua,
com a chuva que limpava um pouco do sangue,
dos restos humanos, as cinzas. Os ossos ficavam,
embranquecendo uns tempos sob um verão que sempre voltava,
e nunca saberemos dos nomes, das partidas, senão apenas
que as lições mais urgentes nunca se aprendem. Mais fácil é
alimentar os pequenos monstros, velar pelas últimas migalhas,
amarrar o pano na boca das palavras, cultivar aos poucos apenas uma
aleijada imaginação, que não consegue lembrar,
nem esquecer.
Miriam Adelman
Acadêmica da AVIPAF
Cadeira: 26
Miriam Adelman, nascida nos EUA em 1955, mora no Brasil desde 1991. Estudou sociologia na cidade de México (UNAM) e em Nova Iorque (NYU), e doutorou-se em Ciências Humanas pelo UFSC (Florianópolis). É professora da UFPR desde 1992. Atualmente se dedica à pesquisa sociológica, à poesia e à tradução, às viagens e à fotografia.
i.
they arrived in the village on foot, by the hundreds.
they arrived unwanted, dragging a child or an elder,
a sack of belongings. it was in fact a lovely place: green
mountains, little black goats on the hillside, onions, potatoes
ready to harvest, and a river too wild to cross, almost
dragging them under, against the chain of hands and
arms. it must have been autumn by then, padded
jackets squirting clear water, weight for the crossing.
that was after the bombings, but before the camps,
and before they saw the fire-colored horse, its slow
circular gallop, its sweaty flanks, its eye toward
freedom
ii.
escape by water must be the hardest.
we take our walk along the coast, doing a shoot of
abandoned boats. that one belonged to a fisherman. can't you
see the pieces of net, the scales, the skeletal fish, dried
under tongues of sun? this is almost the tropics. wooden
boards losing their red, their green, but we find a ski
boat in white and aqua, its fading plastic drifting from
some other port, some high rise shoreline . no one would
come here by high sea, skimming the waves in absolute darkness,
fearing a storm or a mother birthing in a cabin with nothing
but elbow room, and one last gulp of fresh water.
and that makes part of the story: pirates centuries gone,
a coastal guard expecting no surprises, a sleeping village
that could be awoken to plunge into the low tide, pull out
the feverish, offer the hands of a midwife
iii
to return to an abandoned city:
the women scavenge the ruins,
then shoulder the desperate tasks
of washing fluid-stained walls,
covering what is left of windows,
sweeping, stacking, or mending
the anything that can be put back
together. a lone cow walks
the streets, her bell ringing,
her udder full. war has been
the business of men, then work
of memory for someone's
children.
iv.
three Palestinian girls have gone to the beach.
there is in each, some deep harbor of hope: where to
can the boats carry them, each night on the edge
of desire, where checkpoints and gruff soldiers blur
into waves and sunsets, or a midnight café where
music churns out onto the drizzle of streets and
dancing? a tiger has gained his temporary
freedom, a non native savannah. today all rests
in the hands of the men, yet they are bound to
to borders, and barring and burning. to imagine
is to excavate in depleted fields, to unearth
all we have done to destroy
ourselves.
Miriam Adelman
 |
| This sculpture is made of guns and munitions. Al Farrow - Seattle Art Fair 2015. Photo of: Isabel Furini |
The daily underside of war slips away.
There were those who heard nothing, not even the distant
howl of wolves when their woods went up in smoke and skin
and those who missed not even the shy boys, the ones who
were dragged away, nor the rowdy who wanted to
flee when word turned to act. In some villages
there were those who held onto the commonplace:
the card game at the tavern, the habitual visit to the
dressmaker, reminded of dance halls and daughters.
There were, as there always are, those who stashed away
tidbits of food, or who picked the last apples nestled in branches,
then slipping away from the fields, handing the thin slices out
to children hiding in the grass near the train tracks. We
will never know the exact numbers: those left hidden
in attics or wine cellars, or on some tumultuous night
or in some heart that fled into madness. The stories they told
were constantly changing: in the sunshine, under the moon
or when the rain washed away some of the blood,
vestiges, ashes. The bones were more persistent, slowly
bleaching in ever-returning summer. And the names
and departures we cannot ascertain. We know only
that the most urgent lessons are the ones never learned. Easier it is
to feed the little ghouls from the cup of our hands, hover over the last of
the crumbs, tie dirty rags around mouths full of words,
nurture slowly but surely a wretched imagination that is
unable to remember, unable to forget.
Histórias de Guerra
A história cotidiana da guerra se esfuma.
Há quem não escutou nem o uivo longínquo dos lobos
quando seu bosque virou toda fumaça e pele humana.
Há quem não sentiu a falta dos tímidos rapazes, os arrastados
ou mesmo os brabos que se arrependeram quando passou-se
da palavra ao fato. Em certas cidades,
havia quem se dedicasse ao corriqueiro:
ao jogo de baralho na cantina do bairro, ou à visita costumeira
à costureira, pensando ainda no baile, ou nas filhas debutantes.
Havia, como sempre, quem escondia o escasso alimento
assim como aqueles que repartiam o último pão, ou colhiam
as maças ainda aninhadas nos galhos, saindo pelos campos a
distribuir as magras fatias entre as crianças escondidas no
capim ao lado dos trilhos. Nunca saberemos exatamente quantos:
os perseguidos escondidos no porão, ou na cava
numa noite rebelde, ou num coração refugiado na loucura.
Sempre contavam versões que mudavam: com o sol, a lua,
com a chuva que limpava um pouco do sangue,
dos restos humanos, as cinzas. Os ossos ficavam,
embranquecendo uns tempos sob um verão que sempre voltava,
e nunca saberemos dos nomes, das partidas, senão apenas
que as lições mais urgentes nunca se aprendem. Mais fácil é
alimentar os pequenos monstros, velar pelas últimas migalhas,
amarrar o pano na boca das palavras, cultivar aos poucos apenas uma
aleijada imaginação, que não consegue lembrar,
nem esquecer.
Miriam Adelman
Acadêmica da AVIPAF
Cadeira: 26
Miriam Adelman, nascida nos EUA em 1955, mora no Brasil desde 1991. Estudou sociologia na cidade de México (UNAM) e em Nova Iorque (NYU), e doutorou-se em Ciências Humanas pelo UFSC (Florianópolis). É professora da UFPR desde 1992. Atualmente se dedica à pesquisa sociológica, à poesia e à tradução, às viagens e à fotografia.
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