tanta tralha

Azure, or green, or purple when the sun Goldens it with it a false wash of vermillion, The sea forbids, or idles, or leads on, Is at times the abyss, at others mirror. I summon up, as age moves in, That in me which would want more than the sea Now that nothing’s there for discovery.

The great sea-captains and the crews with whom They did the navigation of solitude Lie far away, their reward in their gloom Is our forgetting, our ingratitude. Only the sea, when in storm mood The waves are great and it is truly sea, Seems remembering them uncertainly.

But I am dreaming…Sea is water, mere Nude water, slave to the force, darkly felt, Which, like poetry, comes from the moon And at times will let fall, at others lift. And yet, whatever descants float Above the natural ignorance of the sea, I still for forefeel its murmur, oozily.

Who knows what the soul is? Who can make out What soul there is in things which appear dead - How much, in earth or nothing, can’t forget? Who knows whether space, the empty, is doored? O dream, who thrust on me this duty, To meditate so on the voice of the sea, How meditate on you? Teach that to me.

Captains, quartermasters - all argonauts Of every day’s landfall on unbelief - Perhaps you heard, calling you, unknown flutes, Their tune, elusive, unattainable. Did your hearing perhaps follow A being of the sea yet not the sea - Sirens of hearing, not of victory?

One who beyond oceans without end Has called you out towards the distance, or One who knows there is, in our hearts of men, Desire for good, natural, yet also more Elusive, subtle - to the core A thing which demands the sound of the sea, And not to stop - far from all things still be.

If it is so, if the vast sea and you Are something (you because you perceive, and The sea by being) of this which I think is true; If, in existence’s unknown profound, There’s more soul than can reach the vain Surface of us, as though that of the sea, - Make me, to unknow it, in the end, free.

Give me a soul transposed, an argonaut’s, And make me have, as the old sea-captain had, Or his quartermaster, ears for the flute’s Call out of the distance to our heart, - Make me hear’ like a pardon, part Remembrance of a teaching sunk in me, The ancient Portuguese speech of the sea.

(9.6.35)

This clip from the BBC documentary Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams shows us an truly incredible 250 year old Automaton, by master watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz.

His achievements are notable; "In 15 years at Benfica he scored an incredible 473 goals in 440 competitive games, plus many more in friendlies. He was top scorer seven times in the Portuguese league and was European Golden Boot winner twice. In his only appearance in the World Cup finals, in England in 1966, he won the Golden Boot for top scorer of the tournament, with nine goals in six games" (Guardian).