One of Those Summer Afternoons (New York - São Paolo)

Our summer series, Poetry in Animation, continues with "That Little Something" by Charles Simic (for Li-Young Lee)

The likelihood of ever finding it is small.
It's like being accosted by a woman
And asked by her to look for a pearl
She lost right here in the street.

She could be making it all up,
Even her tears, you say to yourself,
As you search under your feet,
Thinking, Not in a million years....

Photo: Paolo Gasparini (São Paolo, 1972)

It's one of those summer afternoons
When one needs a good excuse
To step out of a cool shade.
In the meantime, what ever became of her?

And why, years later, do you still,
Off and on, cast your eyes to the ground
As you hurry to some appointment
Where you are now certain to be late?

Here we have a title for a photograph that could itself be a poem: "This Sky We See Here" (Acá este cielo que vemos). Paolo Gasparini's image from São Paolo, 1972. Part of the exhibit, Urbes Mutantes: Latin American Photography 1944-2013, at the International Center for Photography.