Sonnets about a Shooting Star

Dear readers and friends,

go to Google and type “shooting star” into the search bar to see the magic that happens… the unexpected.

Enjoy your reading!

Music:

Baden Powell, Linda

Hasselman’s La Source (Yolanda Kondonassis)

Shooting Star Sonnet I (CCCLXIV)

Ana Paula Arendt — English translation by Zenobia

Alive in the nightly sky a shooting star

leaves blazing trails on its fleeting course…

A space-born traveler reaching where we are,

hinting our fate, a quiet guiding force.

Its brilliance lasts no longer than a breath,

yet carves forever one vast, shining view:

the night, infinity defying death,

the poem and the dream that is to love you.

Its path becomes the course my longings take,

turning desire to truth in magic acts,

where man and universe in dialogue wake.

To keep a star in mind, a sudden spark,

as life is brief and built of simple facts…

It lends me light to tell you of my heart.

Imagem: National Geographic

Shooting Star Sonnet II (CCCLXV)

Ana Paula Arendt — English translation by Zenobia

I live within the star that wears away,

giving itself completely, nothing spared…

I reach a thought: for it, enough won’t stay,

its aim is end—erase in silent air.

Not all will see its precious fleeting line,

that shining mark engraved in soul and sight…

Its love depends not on renown or sign,

nor on the voyage that makes it endless light.

One cannot unsee such a wandering flame:

it flung itself and burned inside the dark,

a grain of dust and earth without a name…

It made the heavens beautiful, a sudden lift,

life turns perfect seeing such a spark—

It asks for nothing—only comes as gift.

Shooting Star Sonnet III (CCCLXVI)

Ana Paula Arendt — English translation by Zenobia

And loving to behold the shooting star,

new poets rise from out the beating chest…

Like it, made whole by giving who we are,

to fly like stars and butterflies at rest.

When in the sky I found your wish, my Love—

a poem born of childhood, sudden sight,

the star that startled you from far above—

I too was born a poet by your light.

Like your own shooting star, I want you so:

I fall from space’s infinite, bare void,

from living far from you, cast down below,

rejected by those fearing love unbound,

from darkness I escape, my vow deployed:

to die within your arms, your will fulfilled.

A. P. Arendt. Sonetos de Maior Profundidade.

Imagem: Metrópoles, Douglas Carvalho.