piligrimage: ruins

July 2012

 

"préparer au lierre et au temps un ruine plus belle que les autres..."

- Apollinaire

 

While the weaker fear and the poor (at heart) fight to keep the city barren

nature insists, quixotic, on treasuring this jewel

Behind blue tiles, rugged masonry basks in time

and the Ilhas parasite on bygone shine and splendor

But Industry has left, as have fishermen and frenzy at the foot of the hill

"All is lost now", says the hollow palace turned carcass, exhausted

mark in a cemetery the Douro has left on its shores (these Wilder Shores of Love - again) right before dying itself, in infinity

Ivy slithers over this puzzling presence, stained with seagull shit and urine stench

Empty skins, clean skulls and bones crawling atop the rocky cliff

not rotten flesh anymore, but the promise of noble ruins

bearing the brunt of time with dignity unkwnown to the faint and ephemeral

Powerful heart, swollen breast, fountain of neverending bloom

sewn by metallic staples to its destiny

fed by the experience of timelesness, in this portrait of life and death that is Porto, in the year 2012