Letícia

“an anthropologist who wrote about how the first artifact of civilization wasn’t a hammer or arrowhead, but a human femur—discovered in Madagascar—that showed signs of having healed from a bad fracture. In the animal world, a broken leg meant you starved, so a healed femur meant that some human had supported another’s long recovery, fed them, cleaned the wound. And thus, the author argued, began civilization. Augured not by an instrument of murder, but by a fracture bound, a bit of food brought back for another.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“My Name

“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.
If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was raining very hard.
That is my name.
Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.
That is my name.
Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.
That is my name.
Perhaps you stared into a river. There was somebody near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.
That is my name.”
― Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar

“Often when I imagine you,
your wholeness cascades into many shapes.
You run like a herd of luminous deer,
and I am dark;
I am forest.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“Por isso falava silenciosamente com o sol, na língua das estrelas, dizendo-lhe que viesse mais devagar, por favor, mais devagar. E, naquele mesmo momento, Iaakov Markovitch, deitado em sua cama, que pela primeira vez era também a cama de Bela Markovitch, implorava: mais devagar, por favor, mais devagar. E o sol, apesar de cientistas que insistiam que não era mais que fusão de hidrogênio e hélio, não podia negar as súplicas. Pois o sol – independentemente do que dissessem os cientistas – amava as pessoas em sua totalidade, na medida em que a distância permitia. Não fosse assim não circularia em torno delas dia e noite com preocupação, com dedicação maternal. E mesmo se cientistas dissessem que não era o sol que girava em torno das pessoas, e sim as pessoas em torno dele, e, mais grave ainda, que o giro nada tinha a ver com amor ou preocupação, e fosse motivado apenas por leis físicas, não haveria como contestar nem por um segundo aquilo que o olho enxergava e o coração sabia.”
― Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, One Night, Markovitch