John Updike
passos cadenciados em corredores de aeroportos
bolinhos e cafés apressados das salas de espera,
quartos de hotéis onde os controles remotos das TVs
te esperam sobre a cama, como pistolas suicidas,
horas e horas de vôo entre pessoas engravatadas
que ao mesmo tempo dormem, lêem e assistem filmes,
e os restaurantes de cafés-da-manhã — o pasto dos hotéis —
que com o tempo, se tornam mais agradáveis que o lar.
Os brinquedos das crianças espalhados, o beijo sem gosto da esposa,
a torneira que goteja, e a maldita grama por fazer — isso é vida?
Não, a verdadeira vida é aquela das viagens e dos laptops,
onde as telas sedosas são os nossos espelhos da alma,
dos sapatos exageradamente lustrosos, que denunciam o assassino,
dos compromissos solitários, vôos turbulentos,
diretos ou com escalas, por nuvens melancólicas, até findar
numa pista de aterrisagem, onde alguém como você guarda o Graal.
On the Road
by John Updike
Those dutiful dogtrots down airport corridors
while gnawing at a Dunkin' Donuts cruller,
those hotel rooms where the TV remote
waits by the bed like a suicide pistol,
those hours in the air amid white shirts
whose wearers sleep-read through thick staid thrillers,
those breakfast buffets in prairie Marriotts-
such venues of transit grow dearer than home.
The tricycle in the hall, the wife's hasty kiss,
the dripping faucet and uncut lawn-this is life?
No, vita thrives via the road, in the laptop
whose silky screen shimmers like a dark queen's mirror,
in the polished shoe that signifies killer intent,
and in the solitary mission, a bumpy glide
down through the cloud cover to a single runway
at whose end a man just like you guards the Grail.
by John Updike
Those dutiful dogtrots down airport corridors
while gnawing at a Dunkin' Donuts cruller,
those hotel rooms where the TV remote
waits by the bed like a suicide pistol,
those hours in the air amid white shirts
whose wearers sleep-read through thick staid thrillers,
those breakfast buffets in prairie Marriotts-
such venues of transit grow dearer than home.
The tricycle in the hall, the wife's hasty kiss,
the dripping faucet and uncut lawn-this is life?
No, vita thrives via the road, in the laptop
whose silky screen shimmers like a dark queen's mirror,
in the polished shoe that signifies killer intent,
and in the solitary mission, a bumpy glide
down through the cloud cover to a single runway
at whose end a man just like you guards the Grail.
