Layla, a Nocturna

Holz [madeira, lenha] é um nome antigo para Wald [floresta]. Na floresta [Holz] há caminhos que, o mais das vezes sinuosos, terminam perdendo-se, subitamente, no não-trilhado.

Chamam-se caminhos de floresta [Holzwege].

Cada um segue segue separado, mas na mesma floresta [Wald]. Parece, muitas vezes, que um é igual ao outro. Porém, apenas parece ser assim.

Lenhadores e guardas-florestais conhecem os caminhos. Sabem o que significa estar metido num caminho de floresta.

Martin Heidegger, Caminhos de Floresta

Uma das temáticas centrais da literatura sufi é o amor espiritual entre Deus e o homem. Amor e conhecimento alimentam-se mutuamente, são complementares. Não se trata de um amor humano, carnal, mas sim de uma energia criativa. Como toda a textologia do mundo nos ensina, o indizível, o transcendental, jamais podem ser enunciados directamente; a aproximação ao mistério só se pode fazer pelo caminho da alegoria, pela floresta de símbolos. Para abordar o amor divino, os sufis escolheram então transmutar o vocabulário da antiquíssima poesia erótica árabe. Como a «Essência» divina é uma palavra feminina em árabe, os sufis atribuem sobretudo nomes femininos para evocar o seu amor a Deus. O pronome mais usado é Layla, a Nocturna. Esse nome evoca Deus enquanto ser feminino, ser misterioso, que se vela e revela em simultâneo. O Corão sublinha em várias passagens o facto de o dia penetrar a noite, e vice-versa. Ibn Arabi, filósofo e místico sufi usa o mesmo motivo para compor um símbolo sexual a nível cósmico (a noite fecunda o dia, assim como o céu fecunda a terra, o espírito a alma, Adão a Eva, Deus ao profeta e o profeta a sua mulher). É preciso atravessar a noite. Depois da viagem para Deus, o homem viaja em Deus e essa é uma viagem às escuras, pois não existe mais alto nem baixo, direita ou esquerda, homem ou mulher. A noite é o mistério essencial. Este mesmo motivo, transmitido por místicos judeus espanhóis, terá inspirado a São João da Cruz o tema da «noite escura da alma».

         Tem razão William Burroughs quando afirma THE WORD IS A VIRUS. Somos meros hospedeiros de palavras e ideias que viajam e atravessam as fronteiras do tempo e do espaço, às vezes de dia, por estradas largas e confortáveis, outras vezes de noite, por vielas clandestinas e mãos de contrabandistas. Os homens morrem e são esquecidos; as ideias não conhecem o mesmo destino, conseguem manter-se vivas mesmo se dormentes e agigantam-se a cada nova travessia.

         A contemporaneidade quer impedir esse crecimento vital das ideias, buscando despir as figuras essenciais da vida da sua ambivalência intrínseca. É um projecto com raízes antigas, judaico-cristãs, platónicas: aferrar-se aos binarismos, querer fronteiras que garantam a razão e a segurança, caminhar com o alto e o baixo, a direita e a esquerda. A melancolia, longamente estudada por mais de dois milénios, foi medicalizada como «depressão», e a «noite escura» reduziu-se a uma perda de ânimo da alma, uma crise de fé. Na floresta dos símbolos, importa mais caminhar arqueologicamente, às arrecuas: ir de São João da Cruz aos sufis e remontar a essa antiquíssima poesia erótica árabe e perceber que quem perde o Sul está fazendo amor com um deus nocturno.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —

(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

               And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

               And should I then presume?

               And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

               “That is not it at all,

               That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T. S. Eliot

stalker

"Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win."