the importance of time

an image flashes into our eyes, it takes no more than one instant, one brief moment, a glimpse, and if it is an icon, it takes that long to make sense. Other images might involve a time for decoding, a second look for unravelling or even a pause for possessing it. However, even those, in the first glance are captured, the time that follows is then for a decodification.

verbal discourse is different. the time for text, read or spoken, demands a duration. It demands a time for the words to be delivered, for our eyes to make out the shapes or for our ears to unravell sounds. It demands a time for completing a sentence and for changing whatever has been absorbed with the next pieces of information. In his book "o ser e o tempo da poesia" (the being and the time of poetry), Alfredo Bosi compares the verbal discourse to dance, a sequence of gestures, where one whole gesture is only perceived once it has already passed and has, then, been followed by others. Whatever happens during the process is modified by what follows. Verbal discourse demands more than an image, it asks for those who experience it, patience and hope for what follows.