THE THIRD MARGIN

Superposition, juxtaposition, interference, reinforcement, cancelation...

two frequencies and waves colliding.

Trying to discover the third margin of the river,

the blood vessels of this industrialized country.

Merging into the sediments and the fragment of a past that is still flowing.

River of life in the death season,

carrying goods, delivering news,

washing souls and re-encountering...

Just came from the South, the warm summer, and the tropical rain.

But this exercise, still connects me with the waters of (the) worlds.

Breathing tongues of memories and rennovation.

Imeanja of the cold streams

Flow of time, body, and stones.

I am in the mud.

I am the mud

I can be reborn.

Cycles. The third margin re-emerges.

Rotterdam, winter, 2025.

I remember the readings of Manoel de Barros, a Brazilian writer and poet, many years ago back at home. He coined the term the "third margin" or the "third bank".

For Manoel de Barros, the "third bank" is not a fixed concept or a geographical place, but a condition of freedom, transcendence, and a "child-ing" of language that liberates the individual from the suffocating concrete, from the logical and the predictable, paving the way for the extraordinary, the deconstruction of reality, and the rediscovery of the world through a poetic and imaginative vision.

This notion functions as an escape from the tangible and the excessively practical, creating a space of poetic freedom where language is revolutionized to become a setting for play and discovery. Seeing the "third margin" of the river invites a singular vision, de-automating the gaze, subverting the hierarchies of perception. It also proposes a transcendence of the everyday, connecting to a dimension that goes beyond the given and the routine to reveal a more mystical and profound view of life. Intrinsically linked to neologism and the deconstruction of imposed language, it becomes a territory of invention.

Interestingly, barro in portuguese could be translated as mud, so, Manoel of the Muds was the perfect person who was born to reveal us how to see the "third margin" of the river.