Aqui vai minha pequena homenagem aos 40 anos da chegada na Lua. O poema, de W. H. Auden, foi publicado na New Yorker em setembro de 1969. Hoje, quatro décadas depois, tudo mais que dizem sobre o assunto me parece perfumaria. Aproveitem na voz do próprio…
Moon Landing
It’s natural the Boys should whoop it up for
so huge a phallic triumph, an adventure
it would not have occurred to women
to think worth while, made possible only
because we like huddling in gangs and knowing
the exact time: yes, our sex may in fairness
hurrah the deed, although the motives
that primed it were somewhat less than menschlich.
A grand gesture. But what does it period?
What does it osse? We were always adroiter
with objects than lives, and more facile
at courage than kindness: from the moment
the first flint was flaked this landing was merely
a matter of time. But our selves, like Adam’s,
still don’t fit us exactly, modern
only in this—our lack of decorum.
Homer’s heroes were certainly no braver
than our Trio, but more fortunate: Hector
was excused the insult of having
his valor covered by television.
Worth goingto see? I can well believe it.
Worth seeing? Mneh! I once rode through a desert
and was not charmed: give me a watered
lively garden, remote from blatherers
about the New, the von Brauns and their ilk, where
on August mornings I can count the morning
glories where to die has a meaning,
and no engine can shift my perspective.
Unsmudged, thank God, my Moon still queens the Heavens
as She ebbs and fulls, a Presence to glop at,
Her Old Man, made of grit not protein,
still visits my Austrian several
with His old detachment, and the old warnings
still have power to scare me: Hybris comes to
an ugly finish, Irreverence
is a greater oaf than Superstition.
Our apparatniks will continue making
the usual squalid mess called History:
all we can pray for is that artists,
chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.
Ele não foi exatamente corajoso ao trocar a Grã-Bretanha pelos EUA na época da guerra.
Maravilha, a chance de ler e ouvir pela primeira vez esse Auden tardio e poeticamente level headed. Concordo com o sujeito que disse, no texto linkado abaixo, que, para compreendê-lo plenamente,
“we need to understand how a man with the capacity to say anything should want to escape from the oppression of meaning too much”. 2) Logo em seguida, o mesmo livro no google reproduz matéria antiga do NYT Review of Books, útil ao menos pela curiosidade de apontar a brincadeira de WH em “Moon Landing”, subvertendo uma observação de Samuel Johnson em diálogo com Boswell: “He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour. JOHNSON. “It is the last place where I should wish to travel.” BOSWELL. “Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?” JOHNSON. “No, Sir; Dublin is only a worse capital.” BOSWELL. “Is not the Giant’s-Causeway worth seeing?” JOHNSON. “Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.”
Boswell: Life of Johnson
http://books.google.com.br/books?id=idfllo3X4YkC&pg=PA482&lpg=PA482&dq=Auden+Moon+Landing&source=bl&ots=L9pNqZC_Bm&sig=rXgqESptr5YxpyrbvrJY–QH7Xo&hl=pt-BR&ei=wrVlSs_7OZOxtgeVvcSyAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7