When you realize you've put something off for too long it begins to gnaw at you. Part of your mind keeps on it until you can't shake it anymore. Then you realize you need to do something about it. So I thought I would share something quick so you know I haven't forgotten about you, and in doing so let you know that I'm back.

Literary themes and the real life they reflect can intersect with readers in concrete and overt ways, and in particular, when they engender a necessary, if not postergated, reaction. Take the following poem by the late Vasco Graça Moura, for example:

soneto do amor e da morte:

quando eu morrer murmura esta canção
que escrevo para ti. quando eu morrer
fica junto de mim, não queiras ver
as aves pardas do anoitecer
a revoar na minha solidão.

quando eu morrer segura a minha mão,
põe os olhos nos meus se puder ser,
se inda neles a luz esmorecer,
e diz do nosso amor como se não

tivesse de acabar, sempre a doer,
sempre a doer de tanta perfeição
que ao deixar de bater-me o coração
fique por nós o teu inda a bater,
quando eu morrer segura a minha mão.

("Antologia dos Sessenta Anos")

At first I found it fascinating that the poet would break up the verses by sub-theme, rather than by the traditional Petrarchan sonnet format of 4-4-3-3. Perhaps it has more in relation with the poetic subject's desire to transmit his message; in doing so the author helps this voice to override a formal demand for the more pressing one of relaying important instructions to the listener. Thematically, death in this poem, in this case the poetic subject's own future passing, occurs not in a vein of shame or in a realization of the self's vanishing, but in a movement into passing toward the object of the poem. What I mean is this: the poetic subject does not attempt to fight nor does he call out to "not go quietly into that good night." Rather, his knowledge of the inevitable happens concomitantly with the awareness that the other person will continue on, giving a part of his own life a place to reside. This ontological perpetuity makes for a comforting feeling when faced with the end of the body. Indeed, our evolving notion of self-worth may  find solace in such a message.

Today marks a month since my daughter has surpassed the age I had attained when my father died. When I look at her and see the innocence and playfulness on her face, I feel fortunate that she had not needed to take my hand in the way that Moura's poetic object took that of the subject's; rather, when she takes my hand it is to cross the street or enjoy a stroll together, or just to see "a mão tão grande do papá". The times we enjoy are not of endings, but of continuing to walk side-by-side for all the years we won't have to miss.

I've put off letting these words into my own mind for too long. Tonight turned out to be a good moment to share them. For those of you in the US, I wish you a happy Fourth of July weekend. For everyone else, espero que tenham um excelente fim-de-semana / espero que paséis un buen fin de semana.