Questions by Carlos Drummond de Andrade

One cold, uncertain hour I asked the ghost what force binds us, him to me, whom I think of as not bound to anything, and me to him, gaseous yet vividly felt in the shadow he casts over all my being: reciprocal captives of the same principle (or the same enigma)that distracts or focuses and renews and refines an anxiety of time, prolonging it in space.

Next I asked him the secret of our intimacy without contact, our quiet colloquy, me facing the mirror and the mirror returning a likeness that's different yet always reminiscent of the first image a soul conceives for itself when predestined to live an earthly, everyday sort of adventure.

Then I asked him why he so insists on such tiny seas, on launching shipswith unreal hulls, with no route or idea of reaching any port, ships fit for shipwreck more than sailing; why he insists on the cold crags of the long-toppled mountains of my childhood, on arousing old memories of cowherds, voices, scrawny livestock, path where cow dung was the only adornment, and the desolate macaw palm reigned tall.

Finally I asked him the unreasonable reason for leaning me, in anguish, over remains of remains from where no breath wafts to cool the fever of my reconsiderations; over that field of static ruins, whose military rigidity the morning dew no longer bathes or comforts.

While rising in flight, taciturn and melancholy, bound for eternity, he gave only this answer (if mysteries can indeed be answered by another, still higher mystery): To love, after losing.