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What would the dead want from us

Watching from their cave?

Would they have us forever howling?

Would they have us rave

And disfigure ourselves, or be strangled

Like some ancient emperor's slave?

None of my dead friends were emperors

With such exorbitant tastes

And none of them were so vengeful

As to have their friends waste

Waste quite away in sorrow

Disfigured and defaced.

I think the dead would want us

To weep for what THEY have lost.

I think that our luck in continuing

Is what would affect them most.

But time would find them generous

And less self-engrossed.

And time would find them generous

As they used to be

And what else would they want from us

But an honoured place in our memory,

A favourite room, a hallowed chair,

Privilege and celebrity?

And so the dead might cease to grieve

And we might make amends

And there might be a pact between

Dead friends and living friends,

What our dead friends would want from us

Would be such living friends.

James Fenton

Nestes dias pesados, surgem (um pouco de todo o lado)

os mais diversos pensamentos.

Não é minha intenção inundar o submarino com eles.

Mas este em particular agradeço à Vera.

E, apesar de não saber se ainda cá vem,

é na Maria Vasconcelos que penso quando o partilho aqui.

Um abraço a todos