Helena Almeida, Paris, Galerie Bama
April, 1981

Translation by David Evans republished in Helena Almeida's catalogue for the exhibition at Valentim de Carvalho Gallery, Lisbon, 1990.

I

DONNE, CH'AVETE INTELLETO D'AMORE

with this cry or poem
was proclamed     centuries ago
VITA NUOVA

modernity

but Dante's Beatrice or Novalis' Bride
were still no more than a Name an Idea
a lost time
won in dreams for the emergences of the new
for eternity

Now that we tread the way of Purgatory Infernos
Paradises
(no matter weather real or artificial ones)
now
suddenly orphans
ideas want to return things

("Eternity does exist, indeed, but not so slow", Almada Negreiros)

It's no longer enough for us to gaze at lilies of the field
it is imperative to penetrate them
and little by little
from space to spaces
instrument to instrument
time to time
to be
the lilies themselves
the fields

To be the being

And in this centuries old discovery of modernity
death overcome    VITA NUOVA
woman is the destiny of man
rediscovered

Let us descend to the Bride    perfect
mechanical

II

HELENA ALMEIDA

it is no more the hard work     the painting of your face
nor spacial methaphor
the Avant-Garde

Just the protagonist    she guides chooses     illuminates
the intelligent mechanics of love
the way and the most delicate gestures     of ideas things
of penetration
for
VITA NUOVA