Translated Literature

Half

2015-01-11T06:41:00.000-08:00

Might the power of the fear that I have
not prevent me from seeing what I yearn;
might the death of everything that I believe in
not cover my ears and my mouth;
because half of me is what I yell,
the other half is silence.

Might the music I hear in the distance
be beautiful even being sad;
might the woman that I love
be forever loved, even being far;
because half of me is farewell,
the other half is longing.

Might the words that I speak
not be heard as prayer nor be repeated fervently,
they should only be respected as the only thing
left to a man that is flooded of feelings;
because half of me is what I hear,
the other half is what I silence.

Might my desire to leave
to become the calm and the peace that I deserve;
might the tension that erodes me inside
be rewarded one day;
because half of me is what I think,
the other half is a volcano.

Might the fear of loneliness turn away
and living with myself become at least bearable;
might the mirror reflect my face in a sweet smile that
I remember having smiled in my childhood;
because half of me is the memory of what I was,
the other half I do not know.

Might not take more than a simple joy
to make my mind quiet
and might your silence be more and more meaningful to me;
because half of me is shelter,
the other half is fatigue.

Might art point me an answer,
even if it does not know;
and nobody might try to complicate it,
because simplicity is need to make it bloom;
because half of me is audience,
the other half is song.

And might my foolishness be forgiven,
because half of me is love,
and likewise is the other half.

- Original -

Metade

Que a força do medo que tenho

Não me impeça de ver o que anseio

Que a morte de tudo em que acredito

Não me tape os ouvidos e a boca

Porque metade de mim é o que eu grito

A outra metade é silêncio

Que a música que ouço ao longe

Seja linda ainda que tristeza

Que a mulher que amo seja pra sempre amada

Mesmo que distante

Pois metade de mim é partida

A outra metade é saudade

Que as palavras que falo

Não sejam ouvidas como prece nem repetidas com fervor

Apenas respeitadas como a única coisa

Que resta a um homem inundado de sentimentos

Pois metade de mim é o que ouço

A outra metade é o que calo

Que a minha vontade de ir embora

Se transforme na calma e na paz que mereço

Que a tensão que me corrói por dentro

Seja um dia recompensada

Porque metade de mim é o que penso

A outra metade um vulcão

Que o medo da solidão se afaste

E o convívio comigo mesmo se torne ao menos suportável

Que o espelho reflita meu rosto num doce sorriso

Que me lembro ter dado na infância

Pois metade de mim é a lembrança do que fui

A outra metade não sei

Que não seja preciso mais do que uma simples alegria

Pra me fazer aquietar o espírito

E que o seu silêncio me fale cada vez mais

Pois metade de mim é abrigo

A outra metade é cansaço

Que a arte me aponte uma resposta

Mesmo que ela mesma não saiba

E que ninguém a tente complicar

Pois é preciso simplicidade pra fazê-la florescer

Pois metade de mim é plateia

A outra metade é canção

Que a minha loucura seja perdoada

Pois metade de mim é amor

E a outra metade também

Oswaldo Montenegro

Crossing

2012-10-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

When you left, became night in my life.
I'm strong, but there is no way, today I have to cry.
My house is not mine, nor is mine this place.
I'm alone and I can’t resist, I still have a lot to say.

Loose my voice on the roads, I don’t want to stop now
My path is only stones, how can I dream?
Dreams are made of breeze; winds come and finish them.
I'll close my chest; I’ll want to kill myself.

I'm living my life, forgetting about you.
I don’t want the death anymore, I have a lot to live.
I'd like to love again and, if this doesn’t happen, I will not suffer.
I no longer dream; today I do my life with my own arms.

- Original -

Travessia

Quando você foi embora fez-se noite em meu viver
Forte eu sou mas não tem jeito, hoje eu tenho que chorar
Minha casa não é minha, e nem é meu este lugar
Estou só e não resisto, muito tenho prá falar

Solto a voz nas estradas, já não quero parar
Meu caminho é de pedras, como posso sonhar
Sonho feito de brisa, vento vem terminar
Vou fechar o meu canto, vou querer me matar

Vou seguindo pela vida me esquecendo de você
Eu não quero mais a morte, tenho muito que viver
Vou querer amar de novo e se não der não vou sofrer
Já não sonho, hoje faço com meu braço o meu viver

Milton Nascimento

Sonnet of Separation

2012-08-24T15:19:00.001-07:00

Suddenly the laughter became tear
Silent and white as the brume
And the united mouths became spume
And the flat hands became wonder.

Suddenly calmness became agitation
Which from the eyes blew the last blaze
And passion became premonition
And the still moment became craze.

Suddenly, no more than suddenly
became sad what was lover
And alone what was lovely.

The close friend became the duffer
Life became a time to suffer
Suddenly, no more than suddenly.

- Original -

Soneto da Separação

De repente do riso fez-se o pranto

Silencioso e branco como a bruma

E das bocas unidas fez-se a espuma

E das mãos espalmadas fez-se o espanto.

De repente da calma fez-se o vento

Que dos olhos desfez a última chama

E da paixão fez-se o pressentimento

...E do momento imóvel fez-se o drama.

De repente, não mais que de repente

Fez-se de triste o que se fez amante

E de sozinho o que se fez contente.

Fez-se do amigo próximo o distante

Fez-se da vida uma aventura errante

De repente, não mais que de repente.

Vinicius de Moraes

Epitaph

2012-08-13T14:25:00.002-07:00

Here lies the Sun,
Who created the dawn
And gave birth to the day
And pastured the afternoon.

The magic shepherd
Of luminous hands
That fertilized the roses
And took off their petals.

Here lies the Sun,
The sweet and violent
Androgynous, that

Has the shape
Of all the women
And died in the sea.

- original -

Epitáfio

Aqui jaz o Sol
Que criou a aurora
E deu luz ao dia
E apascentou a tarde

O mágico pastor
De mãos luminosas
Que fecundou as rosas
E as despetalou.

Aqui jaz o Sol
O andrógino meigo
E violento, que

Possuiu a forma
De todas as mulheres
E morreu no mar.

Vinicius de Moraes

Note

2012-07-23T07:22:00.001-07:00

If you love me, love me quietly
Do not scream from the rooftops
Let in peace the birds
Leave me in peace!
If you love me,
finally,
it must be very slowly, my beloved,
‘cause life is brief, and love is even briefer…

Mário Quintana

- Original –

Bilhete

Se tu me amas, ama-me baixinho
Não o grites de cima dos telhados
Deixa em paz os passarinhos
Deixa em paz a mim!
Se me queres,
enfim,
tem de ser bem devagarinho, Amada,
que a vida é breve, e o amor mais breve ainda...

Mário Quintana

Song of America

2012-07-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Friend is a thing to be kept under lock and key, within the heart,
thus spoke the song that I heard in America.

But who was singing wept seeing his friend leaving.
But who stayed flew in his thought, with his song that his friend remembered.
And who flew, in her thoughts stayed, with the memories that her friend sang.

Friend is something to keep in the left chest,
even though time and distance to say "no,"
even if you forget the song.
What matters is the voice that comes from the heart.

So be it what may, come what may,
one day, my friend, I will meet you again.
One day, my friend, we will meet.

- Original –

Canção da América

Amigo é coisa para se guardar debaixo de sete chaves, dentro do coração,
assim falava a canção que na América ouvi.

Mas quem cantava chorou ao ver o seu amigo partir.
Mas quem ficou, no pensamento voou com seu canto que o outro lembrou.
E quem voou, no pensamento ficou com a lembrança que o outro cantou.

Amigo é coisa para se guardar no lado esquerdo do peito,
mesmo que o tempo e a distância digam "não",
mesmo esquecendo a canção.
O que importa é ouvir a voz que vem do coração.

Pois seja o que vier, venha o que vier,
qualquer dia, amigo, eu volto a te encontrar.
Qualquer dia, amigo, a gente vai se encontrar.

Milton Nascimento

Patience

2012-06-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

Even when everything asks for a little more of calmness,
even when the body requires a little more of soul(ness),
life does not stop.

While time speeds up and asks a hurry,
I refuse, I take my time, I don’t worry,
life is so rare.

While everyone is waiting for the solution to their evil
and the common insanity pretends that everything is normal,
I pretend I have patience.

The world spins faster and faster.
We expect of the world and the world expects of us more
a little more of patience.

Do you think you need time to realize?
Do you think we have this time to waste?
but… who cares?
Life is so rare, so rare.

Even when everything asks for a little more calmness,
even when the body requires a little more soul(ness),
I know, life is so rare, life does not stop, no.
Life does not stop.

- Original -

Paciência

Mesmo quando tudo pede um pouco mais de calma,
até quando o corpo pede um pouco mais de alma,
A vida não para.

Enquanto o tempo acelera e pede pressa,
eu me recuso faço hora, vou na valsa,
a vida é tão rara.

Enquanto todo mundo espera a cura do mal
e a loucura finge que isso tudo é normal,
eu finjo ter paciência.

O mundo vai girando cada vez mais veloz.
A gente espera do mundo e o mundo espera de nós
um pouco mais de paciência.

Será que é tempo que lhe falta pra perceber ?
Será que temos esse tempo pra perder?
E quem quer saber?
A vida é tão rara, tão rara.

Mesmo quando tudo pede um pouco mais de calma,
Até quando o corpo pede um pouco mais de alma,
Eu sei, a vida não rara, a vida não para, não.

A vida não para.

Lenine

What did Happen Indeed

2012-06-21T10:02:00.001-07:00

What did happen, my friend, with all we have dreamed?

What did happen with our lives? What did happen with our love?

I’d like to find that young verse

I wrote many years ago.

I speak like that without nostalgia,

I speak because I know:

If what we had done is worth,

what we will do is even worthier.

And we need to learn what we had been done

to better proceed.

I speak like that without sorrow,

I speak because I believe

that is remembering what we were

that we will be able to grow.

Other falls will come,

other mornings full of light and sun.

- Original -

O que foi feito, amigo, de tudo que a gente sonhou?
O que foi feito da vida? O que foi do amor?

Quisera encontrar aquele verso menino
que escrevi há tantos anos atrás.

Falo assim sem saudade,
Falo assim por saber:
Se muito vale o já feito,
Mais vale o que será.

E o que foi feito é preciso conhecer
Para melhor prosseguir.

Falo assim sem tristeza,
Falo por acreditar
Que é cobrando o que fomos
Que nós iremos crescer.

Outros outubros virão,
Outras manhãs plenas de sol e de luz.

Milton Nascimento e Fernando Brant

Leading Forward

2012-06-19T17:27:00.003-07:00

I go slowly because I’ve already had in a hurry.
I'm always smiling because I already cried too much.

Today I feel I'm stronger, I’m happier, maybe.
I’m just sure that what I know is very little; I know nothing.

Learning the moaning and the morning
The taste of the dairies and of the berries

It’s needed love to make beating a heart;
It’s needed peace to make someone smile;
It’s needed rain to blooming.

I feel that our duty in life is simply
Learning the pace and keep moving on.

Like an old cowboy leading the cattle,
I conduce my days through this long road, I do.
I am the road.

Everyone loves one day, everybody cries,
One day we arrive and in another day we leave.

Each one of us creates our own destiny,
Each one by oneself has the gift of being able to be happy.

- Original -

Tocando em Frente

Ando devagar porque já tive pressa
E levo esse sorriso porque já chorei demais

Hoje me sinto mais forte, mais feliz, quem sabe
Só levo a certeza de que muito pouco sei, eu nada sei

Conhecer as manhas e as manhãs
O sabor das massas e das maçãs

É preciso amor pra poder pulsar
É preciso paz pra poder sorrir
É preciso a chuva para florir

Penso que cumprir a vida seja simplesmente
Compreender a marcha e ir tocando em frente

Como um velho boiadeiro levando a boiada
Eu vou tocando os dias pela longa estrada, eu vou
Estrada eu sou

Todo mundo ama um dia,
Todo mundo chora,
Um dia a gente chega
E no outro vai embora

Cada um de nós compõe a sua história
Cada ser em si carrega o dom de ser capaz de ser feliz

Almir Sater

Fool’s Gold

2012-06-18T18:12:00.001-07:00

I should be happy because I got a job; I'm what they call a respectable citizen and every month I earn a few thousands of dollars.
I should be grateful to the Lord for having success in life as an artist. I should be happy because I managed to buy two brand new cars.

I should be happy and satisfied for living in Ipanema, after having been starved for two years here in this city that is marvelous.
Ah! I should be smiling and proud for having finally overcome in life, but I think this is a big joke and somewhat dangerous.

I should be pleased for having achieved everything I wanted, but astonished I confess that I'm disappointed and dull.
Because it was so easy to get everything and now I wonder "so what?" I have a lot of great things to achieve and I can't sit still.

I should be happy because Lord has given me Sunday to go with my family to the zoo to give popcorn to the monkeys.
Ah! But what boring guy I am, I don’t think anything is funny; monkey, beach, car, newspaper, toboggan, I think everything sucks.

It’s like you, looking in the mirror, feeling you are the biggest idiot ever, knowing that you’re human, ridiculous, limited, and that you use only ten percent of your animal mind.
And you still believe that you are a doctor, a priest, a policeman, who is contributing with your share to our beautiful society and to the whole humankind.

I do not sit on the throne of my apartment with a gaping mouth full of teeth, waiting for death to come.
Because far from the fences that separate backyards, in the calm top of my iris that sees, lands the sound shadow of a flying saucer.

- Original -

Ouro de Tolo

Eu devia estar contente porque eu tenho um emprego, sou um dito cidadão respeitável e ganho quatro mil cruzeiros por mês.

Eu devia agradecer ao Senhor por ter tido sucesso na vida como artista. Eu devia estar feliz porque consegui comprar um Corcel 73.

Eu devia estar alegre e satisfeito por morar em Ipanema depois de ter passado fome por dois anos aqui na Cidade Maravilhosa.

Ah! Eu devia estar sorrindo e orgulhoso por ter finalmente vencido na vida, mas eu acho isso uma grande piada e um tanto quanto perigosa.

Eu devia estar contente por ter conseguido tudo o que eu quis, mas confesso abestalhado que eu estou decepcionado.

Porque foi tão fácil conseguir e agora eu me pergunto "e daí?" Eu tenho uma porção de coisas grandes prá conquistar e eu não posso ficar aí parado.

Eu devia estar feliz pelo Senhor ter me concedido o domingo para ir com a família no Jardim Zoológico dar pipoca aos macacos.

Ah! Mas que sujeito chato sou eu que não acha nada engraçado, macaco, praia, carro, jornal, tobogã, eu acho tudo isso um saco.

É você olhar no espelho, se sentir um grandessíssimo idiota, saber que é humano, ridículo, limitado, que só usa dez por cento de sua cabeça animal.

E você ainda acredita que é um doutor, padre ou policial, que está contribuindo com sua parte para o nosso belo quadro social.

Eu que não me sento no trono de um apartamento com a boca escancarada cheia de dentes, esperando a morte chegar.

Porque longe das cercas embandeiradas que separam quintais, no cume calmo do meu olho que vê, assenta a sombra sonora de um disco voador.

Raul Seixas

John and Mary

2012-06-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

Now I was the hero
and my horse was from Baltimore.
The cowboy’s bride was you
besides other three more.

I faced the battalions,
the Germans and their cannons.
I kept my slingshot
and practiced my rock
to the matinees.

Now I was the king,
I was the beadle and I was also the authority;
and, by my law,
we had the obligation of being happy.

And you were the princess I crowned,
you were so beautiful to astound,
and you walked naked through my country.

No, do not flee. Pretend that now I was your teddy bear,
I was your toy, I was your rose without thorn.

Yes, give me your hand, we now had no fear.
At the time of evil, I think we were not even born.

Now it was unavoidable the makes-believe finished with no fight.

Beyond this backyard, there was just an endless night.

‘Cause you disappeared in the world without tell me why,
And I got crazy asking to myself without shy:
'What will life do to me?'

- Original -

João E Maria

Agora eu era o herói
E o meu cavalo só falava inglês
A noiva do cowboy
Era você
Além das outras três
Eu enfrentava os batalhões
Os alemães e seus canhões
Guardava o meu bodoque
E ensaiava o rock
Para as matinês
Agora eu era o rei
Era o bedel e era também juiz
E pela minha lei
A gente era obrigada a ser feliz
E você era a princesa
Que eu fiz coroar
E era tão linda de se admirar
Que andava nua pelo meu país
Não, não fuja não
Finja que agora eu era o seu brinquedo
Eu era o seu pião
O seu bicho preferido
Sim , me dê a mão
A gente agora já não tinha medo
No tempo da maldade
Acho que a gente nem tinha nascido
Agora era fatal
Que o faz-de-conta terminasse assim
Pra lá desse quintal
Era uma noite que não tem mais fim
Pois você sumiu no mundo
Sem me avisar
E agora eu era um louco a perguntar
O que é que a vida vai fazer de mim

Chico Buarque & Sivuca

The Keeper of Sheep - II

2012-06-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

My sight is clear as a sunflower.
I have the habit of walking by the streets
Looking to the right and to the left,
And occasionally looking back.
And what I see each moment
It's what I had never seen before,
And I realize this very well.
I know to have the essential amazement,
Like a child has, when is born,
Really noticing she was born.
I feel as I am born in each moment
To the eternal newness of the world.
I think the world as a daisy,
Because I see it. But I do not think of it
Because thinking is not understanding.
The world was not made to think of it
(To think is to be sick of the eyes)
But just to look at it and agree.
I have no philosophy: I have senses and feelings.
If I speak of Nature it is not because I know what it is,
But because I love it, and I love it because of this,
Because who loves never knows what loves.
Neither knows why loves, nor what love is.
Loving is the everlasting innocence,
And the only innocence is not thinking.

- Original -
O meu olhar é nítido como um girassol.
Tenho o costume de andar pelas estradas
Olhando para a direita e para a esquerda,
E de vez em quando olhando para trás…
E o que vejo a cada momento
É aquilo que nunca antes eu tinha visto,
E eu sei dar por isso muito bem…
Sei ter o pasmo essencial
Que tem uma criança se, ao nascer,
Reparasse que nascera deveras…
Sinto-me nascido a cada momento
Para a eterna novidade do mundo…
Creio no mundo como num malmequer,
Porque o vejo. Mas não penso nele
Porque pensar é não compreender…
O Mundo não se fez para pensarmos nele
(Pensar é estar doente dos olhos)
Mas para olharmos para ele e estarmos de acordo…
Eu não tenho filosofia: tenho sentidos…
Se falo na Natureza não é porque saiba o que ela é,
Mas porque a amo, e amo-a por isso,
Porque quem ama nunca sabe o que ama
Nem sabe por que ama, nem o que é amar…
Amar é a eterna inocência,
E a única inocência é não pensar…

Fernando Pessoa

Forbidden Birds

2012-06-04T12:51:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not, the main prison during the Uruguayan military dictatorship was called Freedom. And, believe it or not, it was forbidden in that prison named Freedom that the prisoners drew or received pictures of butterflies, stars, couples, and birds. One of the prisoners, Didaskó Pérez, a school teacher, who was arrested for having, as said the arresting officer ... arrested for having "ideological ideas", received in a given Sunday the visit of his daughter Milay, a five years old girl. His daughter brought a drawing of birds. As the birds were forbidden, the censors tore it; the censors tore the drawing at the entrance of the prison.

The next Sunday Milay brought a drawing of trees ... as the trees were not forbidden ... the drawing passed. And the father asked her, "Those fruits, those colorful fruits that are there... What are they? Oranges, lemons, apples? What are they?" And the girl shushed him:

"Shhh, silly, can’t you see that they are eyes? The eyes of the birds that I brought to you in secret."

Eduardo Galeano

- Original -

Pájaros Prohibidos

Por increíble que parezca, la principal cárcel de la dictadura militar uruguaya se llamaba Libertad. Y. por increíble que parezca, estaba prohibido en esa cárcel llamada Libertad que los presos dibujaran o recibieran dibujos de mariposas, estrellas, parejas y pájaros. Uno de los presos, Didaskó Pérez, maestro de escuela, preso por tener, como dijo el oficial que lo detuvo…preso por tener “ideas ideológicas”, recibió un domingo la visita de su hija Milay de cinco años. La hija le trajo un dibujo de pájaros. Como los pájaros estaban prohibidos, la censura se lo rompió; los censores rompieron el dibujo a la entrada de la cárcel.

Al domingo siguiente Milay trajo un dibujo de árboles… como los árboles no estaban prohibidos… el dibujo pasó. Y el padre le preguntó: -Esas frutas, esas frutas de colores que hay… ¿Qué son?, ¿Naranjas, limones, manzanas?, ¿Qué son?. Y la niña lo hizo callar:

- Shhh, bobo, ¿No vés que son ojos? Los ojos de los pájaros que te traje a escondidas.

If I Were Me

2012-02-18T18:00:00.001-08:00

When I don't know where I kept an important paper and the search becomes useless, I wonder: if I were me and I had an important paper to keep, which place would I choose to keep it? Sometimes it works. But sometimes I get so impressed by the phrase "if I were me," that the search for the paper becomes secondary, and I start to think, I mean I start to FEEL.

And I don't feel well. Try it: if you were you, how would you be and what would you do? From the beginning we feel an embarrassment: the lie in which we were accommodated was just LOCOMOVED from where it had been settled. However I've read biographies of people who suddenly started to be themselves and their lives changed completely.

I think that if I were really me, my friends would not greet on the street, because even my appearance would have had changed. How? I don't know.

I can't tell half of the things I would do if I were me. I think, for example, that for some reason I would end up going to jail. And, if I were me, I would give everything I have and I would trust my future to the future.

"If I were me" seems to represent our greatest danger of living, it seems to be a new entrance into the unknownness.

However, I have a hunch that, after the first called craziness of the party that it would be, finally we would have the experience of the world. I know, we would experience finally and fully the pain of the world and our own pain - that one we learned to do not feel. But sometimes we would be taken by pure joy and ecstasy, the legitimate ones, that I can hardly imagine. No, I think I'm somehow already imagining, because I was smiling and I also felt a kind of shame, as that one we feel when we are before something that is too great.

Clarice Lispector

- Original -

"Quando não sei onde guardei um papel importante e a procura se revela inútil, pergunto-me: se eu fosse eu e tivesse um papel importante para guardar, que lugar escolheria? Às vezes dá certo. Mas muitas vezes fico tão pressionada pela frase "se eu fosse eu", que a procura do papel se torna secundária, e começo a pensar. Diria melhor, sentir.

E não me sinto bem. Experimente: se você fosse você, como seria e o que faria? Logo de início se sente um constrangimento: a mentira em que nos acomodamos acabou de ser levemente locomovida do lugar onde se acomodara. No entanto já li biografias de pessoas que de repente passavam a ser elas mesmas, e mudavam inteiramente de vida. Acho que se eu fosse realmente eu, os amigos não me cumprimentariam na rua porque até minha fisionomia teria mudado. Como?não sei.

Metade das coisas que eu faria se eu fosse eu, não posso contar. Acho, por exemplo, que por um certo motivo eu terminaria presa na cadeia. E se eu fosse eu daria tudo o que é meu, e confiaria o futuro ao futuro.

"Se eu fosse eu" parece representar o nosso maior perigo de viver, parece a entrada nova no desconhecido. No entanto tenho a intuição de que, passadas as primeiras chamadas loucuras da festa que seria, teríamos enfim a experiência do mundo. Bem sei, experimentaríamos enfim em pleno a dor do mundo. E a nossa dor, aquela que aprendemos a não sentir. Mas também seríamos por vezes tomados de um êxtase de alegria pura e legítima que mal posso adivinhar. Não, acho que já estou de algum modo adivinhando porque me senti sorrindo e também senti uma espécie de pudor que se tem diante do que é grande demais".

The Duck

2012-02-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

Here comes the duck

He comes on and on

Here comes the duck

To see what is going on.

The goofy duck

Painted the cup

Beat the pigeon

Hit the widgeon

Capered from the perch

At the horse paw

That kick him over

A cock on his brow

Ate a lot of crummy

Rest of food

Fell pain in the tummy

The food was crude.

He fell into the pit

Scared the kit

He only messed up

He went to the pot.

Vinícius De Moraes

- Original -

O Pato

Lá vem o Pato

Pata aqui, pata acolá

Lá vem o Pato

Para ver o que é que há.

O Pato pateta

Pintou o caneco

Surrou a galinha

Bateu no marreco

Pulou do poleiro

No pé do cavalo

Levou um coice

Criou um galo

Comeu um pedaço

De jenipapo

Ficou engasgado

Com dor no papo

Caiu no poço

Quebrou a tigela

Tantas fez o moço

Que foi pra panela.

Recipe of New Year

2011-12-31T10:22:00.000-08:00

To get a stunning new year
with rainbow colors, or with the color of your peace,
a New Year without comparison with all the time you have already lived
(even if it was bad lived or senseless maybe),
to get a new year
not only a year painted as new, patched in a hurry,
but new in the little seeds of the come-to-be;
a new year
even in the heart of the unnoticed things
(since your own interior),
new, spontaneous, so perfect year that we don’t even pay attention,
but with it you eat, you walk around,
you love, you understand, you work;
to get this new year,
you don’t need to drink champagne or any other drink,
you don’t need send nor receive messages.
(do plants receive messages?
do them send messages?)

You don’t need
to make list of good intentions
to keep in your drawer.
You don’t need to cry regretful
for the nonsense thi to stupidly believe
that by decree of hope,
beginning in January, everything will change
and everything will be light, rewarding,
there will be justice among the men and the nations,
there will be freedom with smell and taste of morning bread,
the rights will be respected, starting
for the august right of living.

To get a New Year
that deserves this name,
you, my friend, have to deserve it.
You have to make it new. I know that is not easy,
but try, experiment, percipient.
It’s inside of you that the New Year

is taking a nap and waiting since ever.

(Original)

Receita de Ano Novo

Para você ganhar belíssimo Ano Novo
cor de arco-íris, ou da cor da sua paz,
Ano Novo sem comparação como todo o tempo já vivido
(mal vivido ou talvez sem sentido)
para você ganhar um ano
não apenas pintado de novo, remendado às carreiras,
mas novo nas sementinhas do vir-a-ser,
novo até no coração das coisas menos percebidas
(a começar pelo seu interior)
novo espontâneo, que de tão perfeito nem se nota,
mas com ele se come, se passeia,
se ama, se compreende, se trabalha,
você não precisa beber champanha ou qualquer outra birita,
não precisa expedir nem receber mensagens
(planta recebe mensagens?
passa telegramas?).

Não precisa fazer lista de boas intenções
para arquivá-las na gaveta.
Não precisa chorar de arrependido
pelas besteiras consumadas
nem parvamente acreditar
que por decreto da esperança
a partir de janeiro as coisas mudem
e seja tudo claridade, recompensa,
justiça entre os homens e as nações,
liberdade com cheiro e gosto de pão matinal,
direitos respeitados, começando
pelo direito augusto de viver.

Para ganhar um ano-novo
que mereça este nome,
você, meu caro, tem de merecê-lo,
tem de fazê-lo de novo, eu sei que não é fácil,
mas tente, experimente, consciente.
É dentro de você que o Ano Novo
cochila e espera desde sempre.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

The Dragons Don't Know the Paradise

2011-12-30T12:41:00.001-08:00

(from the original by Caio Fernando Abreu, "Os Dragões Não Conhecem o Paraíso")

I have a dragon that lives with me.

No, this is not true.

I don’t have any dragon. And, even if I had, he wouldn’t live with me or with anybody else. To the dragons, there is nothing more inconceivable than sharing his space – it doesn’t matter if with other dragon, or with someone banal like me. Even with unusual people, as I imagine other people are. They are lonely, the dragons. They are almost as lonely as I am now, alone in this apartment, after your departure. I say almost because, during that time while he was with me, I fed the illusion that my isolation was done forever. I say illusion because, other day, in one of these arid mornings of his presence, fortunately less frequent each time (the aridness no, the absence), I thought like that: The men need the illusion of love in the same manner they need the illusion of God. They need the illusion of love to do not be sunk in the terrible well of the complete loneliness; they need the illusion of God, to do not lose themselves in the chaos of the nonsense disorder.

This seemed to me magniloquent and wise as one idea that was not mine, so stupid my thought usually are. I took note quickly in a napkin there in the bar where I was. I also wrote down something else, but it was stained by the coffee. Even now I couldn’t decipher it. Maybe I’m afraid of my – unfortunately indecipherable – lucidity of that day.

I’m confusing and scattering myself.

The napkin, the phrase, the stain, the fear – this should come later. All these things I’m talking about now – the particularities of the dragons, the banality of people like me –, I just realized later, slowly, in his absence, while I was trying to understand him. Each time less, so my comprehension would not be seductive, and each time more, so my comprehension would help myself. I don’t know what to say. When I think like that, I enumerate propositions like: be a less banal person, be stronger, more self confident, more serene, happier, to navigate with the minimum of pain. All these things we decide to do or become when something we supposed to be big finishes, and there is nothing to be done besides keeping living.

So, be sweet. I repeat every morning, when I open the windows to allow the sun come in or even the gray of the day, exactly in this way: be sweet. When it’s sunny, and the sun comes directly to my sleepy face from the sleep or from the insomnia, looking on the small particles of dusty flying in the air, as a small universe, I repeat seven times to give me luck: be sweet be sweet be sweet and so on. However, if someone asked me what should be sweet, maybe I don’t know the answer. Everything is so vague as it was nothing.

Nobody will ask me anything, I think. Then I keep telling to myself, as I was in the same time the old man that tells and the child who listens to, sitting in the lap of mine. This was the image that came to me this morning when, at the moment I opened the window, I decided I couldn’t support living one more day without tell this dragons’ story. I avoided it until the middle of the afternoon. It hurts, a little. It’s not more a recent wound, just a small rose thorn, that one you try to pull off from your hand with the help of a needle. You know that, if you couldn’t extirpate it, the small thorn can stop of being a small pain to becoming a big sore.

So, now, I’m here. Thin needle fixed between the fingers of my right hand, hovering over the opened palm of my left hand. There are some notes around, taken long ago, the napkin of the paper of the bar, with those wise words that do not seem to be mine and those other ones, stained, that I cannot or I pretend I can’t decipher.

But I still didn’t start.

I would like to know to say Once upon a time. But I still couldn’t.

But I need to start in some way. And this, without properly starting, a little confused, disperse, monotone, seems to be a so good or bad way as any other way of starting a story; mainly if it is a dragon story.

I like to say I have a dragon that lives with me, although this is not true. As I said, a dragon never belongs to, neither lives with someone. It can be a banal person as me, or a unicorn, salamander, harpy, elf, hamadryad, mermaid, or ogre. I doubt that a dragon can live better together with these mythological beings, more similar to his own nature, than with a human being. I do not mean they are not sociable. At contrary, sometimes a dragon knows how to be gentle and submissive as a geisha. However, they do not share their habits.

Nobody is able to understand a dragon. They never show what they feel. Who could understand, for instance, that as they wake up (and this can be any time, at 3am or at 11pm, once the day and the night happen inside, but is more probable between 7am and 9am, because this is the dragon’s time) they always beat the tail three times, as they were furious, breathing fire for the nose and carbonizing everything in a radium of more than 15 feet? Today, I consider: maybe it’s exactly this his clumsy way of saying, as I always say, when wakes up – that is sweet.

But in that time in which he lived with me, I tried – let’s say – adapt him to the circumstances. I said please, try to understand, honey, the banal neighbors of the lower level are complaining because of your tail beating in the floor at 4am. The baby woke up, they said, and nobody else could sleep. Besides of this, when you awakes in the living room, all plants are burned by your fire. And, when you awake in the bedroom, that stack of books becomes ashes in my headboard.

He didn’t promise me be better. I know very well as all this stuff seems to be ridiculous. A dragon never thinks he is wrong. Actually, he never is. Everything he does, even if it seems to be dangerous, eccentric, or at least impolite for a human being like me, is just part of this weird dragon nature. In the next morning, or afternoon, or evening, when he awaked again, again the neighbors would complain and the yellow primroses and the green and purple begonias, and Kafka, Pessoa, Clarice, and Borges would be darker and parched each day, until the moment when, in that apartment, it remained only he and me among ashes. Ashes are as silk to a dragon, but not to a human being, because to us it reminds destruction and death, not pleasure. They travel unpunished, delighted, in the threshold between this hidden zone and the most mundane one. What we cannot understand, or at least accept.

Above all: I didn’t see him. The dragons are invisible, you know. Do you? I didn’t. This is so slow, so delicate to talk about – do you still have patience? Right, it’s very obvious you want to know how, after all, I was really sure about his existence, if I say I didn’t see him. If you said something like that, he would laugh of you. Sure, he would do it just if, like the men and the hyenas, the dragons had the ambiguous gift of laughter. Maybe you would think he was ironic, but he would be impassive when he asked you: so, do you just believe in what you see? If you said yes, he would talk about unicorns, salamanders, harpies, hamadryads, mermaids, and ogres. Maybe he would talk also about fairies and Orishas, who knows? Maybe atoms, black holes, white dwarfs, quasars, and protozoa. Then, he’d say, with that lightly pedantic way, “Who only believes in the visible things has a very small world. The dragons don’t fit in these small worlds of inviolable walls to what is not visible.”

He enjoyed a lot these words that start with in – invisible, inviolable, incomprehensible – that mean the opposite of what they should mean. Himself was entirely the opposite of what he should be. This was in such way that when I noticed he was intractable, to use one word he would like to, I supposed him at contrary – wet of caress. I thought sometimes of treating him in such way, at reverse, so we could be happier together. I never dared. And, now he is gone, it’s too late to try refined harmonies.

He smelled like mint and rosemary. I believed in his existence for this smell of crushed herbs inside of both palms of the hands. There were other signs, other omens. But I want stay a little bit more in these, in the smells, before keeping going. Never belief if someone, even someone who does not have a small world, tells you that the dragons smell like horses after racing, or like stray dogs after raining. Like closed rooms, must, rotten fruits, dead fish and salt spray – this was never the dragon’s smell.

Like mint and rosemary, they smell. When he arrived, the entire apartment was impregnated with this scent. Even the neighbors, those ones of the lower level, asked me if I burned incense or some smoking. Well, the woman asked. She had an innocent blue eyes. The husband didn’t say anything, neither greeted me. I guess he thought it was one of these herbs from native people that some people used to smoke when lived in apartments, hearing loud songs. The woman said that the baby slept better when the smell started to go down by the stairs, stronger in the beginning of the evening, and that the baby smiled, seemed he was dreaming. I didn’t say anything, but I knew the baby was dreaming with dragons, unicorn or salamanders, this was the way as his world was becoming lightly wider. But the babies usually forget these kinds of things when they grow up, even having this weird facility to see dragons – this kind of thing that only people of the wide world can do.

I learned the way of notice when the dragon was by my side. Once, we went down together by the elevator with that woman with innocent blue eyes and her baby, who had also innocent blue eyes. The baby looked during the entire time at where the dragon was. The dragons always stay in the left side of the people, so they talk directly to the heart. The air by my side became lighter, with a lightly purple color. This was sign that he was happy. He, the dragon, and also the baby, and me, and the woman, and the Japanese woman who took the elevator in the sixth floor, and the bearded man of the third floor. We smiled gently, a little bit silly, going down together by the elevator in an afternoon I remember of April – this is the month of the dragons – inside of that environment of flowing eternity the only the dragons, but only sometimes, know transmitting.

For situation like that, I loved him. I still love him, who knows even now, who knows even without know the exact meaning of this dry word – love. If not during the entire time, at least when I remember this kind of moments. Unfortunately, rare moments. The roughness and the reverse seem to be more constant in the dragon nature than the lightness and the right. But I’d like to talk about something before the smell. There were other signs, I already said this. Vague, all of them.

In the days that preceded his arrival, I woke in the middle of the night with racing heart. The palms of the hands sweated cold. Without any reason, in the next mornings, compulsively I started to buy flowers, clean the house, go to the supermarket and to the fair to leave the apartment full of roses and palms and strawberries, those ones really big, and shiny bunches of grapes and light eggplants (the dragons, I realized later, love contemplate eggplants) that I for myself couldn’t eat. I arranged everything in plates, in all places, with flowers, candles and ribbons, to let the place more pleasant.

It was like a hunger, I felt. But it was a hunger of seeing, not of eating. I sat in the perfectly tide living room, brushed carpet, washed curtains, fruit baskets, vases with flowers – lit a cigarette and stayed chewing with my eyes the beauty of the cleaned and orderly things, without being able of eating anything with my mouth, I was starving of seeing. As the house was becoming more beautiful, I was becoming uglier, thinner, deep dark circles, sunken faces, because I couldn’t sleep nor eat, waiting for him. Now, now I’ll be happy, I thought during the entire time in a hysteric confidence. Even that smell of rosemary, of mint, started to be stronger and stronger, then, one day, slip like breeze under the door and slowly install himself in the entrance hall, in the sofa of the living room, in the bathroom, in my bed. He had arrived.

These rhythms, I just realized slowly. Even the smell of mint and rosemary, I realized what exactly was when I saw some herbs in a booth. My heart was pounding, I imagined he was close. I followed the smell, until bend over the board to realize: they were two green packs, the mint with little small leaves, the rosemary with long rods and leaves that seem to be thorns, but do not hurt. Ask the name, the man said, I didn’t forget. By pure vertigo, in the following days I repeated when I was missing him: rosemary mint rosemary mint rosemary mint rosemary.

Before, even before, the presentiment of his visit brought only anxiety, tachycardia, afflictions, bitten nails. It was not good. I couldn’t work, go to the theater, read or sink in any other banal occupation that people like me have when they live. I just could think of beautiful things to the house, and in being pretty myself to meet him. It was such a big anxiety that I became uglier, as the days passed by. And, when he finally arrived, I was as ugly as never. The dragons don’t forgive the ugliness, even more of those who they honor with their visit.

When they came, the beauty of the house contrasting with the ugliness of my body, everything started slowly to collapse. It was like pain, not joy. Now now now I will be happy, I repeated: now now now. And I stared every corner of greenish silver, elusive light, the arrowhead of his tail through some crack in a door or the smoke from his nostrils, always evil, and the smoke, dark. In those days, I went crazy more and more, because I wanted now in that moment urgent of being happy. Noticing my craving, he became more and more remote. He didn’t come; he departed, or pretended he was leaving. He attenuated his herb smell to avoid any green suspicion in the air. I breathed deeper; sometimes I was out of breath in the effort to notice him, day after day, while flowers and fruits rotted in the vases, in the baskets, in the corners. Those small black flies were flying around them, they are ominous.

Everything rotted more and more, without I noticed, hurt I was for the impossibility of having him. I was only aware of my pain that rotted as well, and stank. Then some neighbors knocked my door to know if I had died and yes, I would like to say, I’m rotting slowly, I’m stinking like the banal people smell when they die, waiting for the happiness that never comes. He wouldn’t understand me. I didn’t, in those days – do you understand me?

The dragons, I said, can’t stand the ugliness. He left when those smells of the flowers and fruits and, worse than everything, of the rooted feelings became unbearable. Similar and confused to the smell of my happiness that, once more, he didn’t bring. Sleeping or awaken, I felt his departure as sudden punch in my chest. Then I looked up, at the sideways, looking for God or something else like that – hamadryads, archangels, radioactive clouds, even for demon, whatever. I never saw them. I never saw anything, but the walls suddenly so empty without him.

Only those ones who already had a dragon at home know how the house looks desert after he leaves. Dunes, glaciers, steppes. Never more the greenish reflections in the corners, neither the herbs’ smell in the air, never more colorful smokes or shapes like serpents lurking through the cracks of the ajar doors. Even sadder: never more any will of being happy inside of ourselves, even if this happiness let us with the heart racing, wet hands, shinny eyes and that hunger that was unable to swallow anything. Just appreciating the beauty, that is watching, not chewing, and even for this reason another kind of discomfort. In the dry cloudy of an house that was emptied of the presence of a dragon, even after return to eat and to sleep normally, as the banal people do, you don’t know if it was preferable that previous swamp, full of possibilities – that never happened, but is it important? – than this dryness like now, when everything, without him, is nothing.

Today, I guess I know. Does a dragon come and leave to make your world grow? I ask – because I’m not sure – maybe a kind of simple things, like: does a dragon come and leave to make you learn about the pain of do not having him, after you had fed the illusion of having him? And to, who knows, the humans learn the way of holding him, if he comes back one day?

No, it’s not like that. This is not true.

The dragons don’t stay. The dragons are just the annunciation of themselves. They rehearse forever, but they never debut. The curtain are never opened to they be able of coming to the stage. They draft and scumble themselves in the air, but they don’t define themselves. The applause is intolerable to them: the confirmation of their inadequacy is understood and admired, and therefore – for the reverse equals to the right – misunderstood, rejected, neglected. The dragons don’t want to be accepted. They flee from the paradise, this paradise that us, the banal people, created – as I used to create a beauty of devices to wait for him, to hold him forever with me. The dragons don’t know the paradise, where everything happens perfectly and nothing hurts neither sparkles nor gasps, in an everlasting monotony of peaceful falsity. Their paradise is the conflict, never the harmony.

When I return to think of him, in these nights in which I stay at the window looking for some immobile lights in the sky, I like to imagine he is flying with his big golden wings, free in the space, toward everywhere that is nowhere. This is his more subtle nature, averse to the paradisiacal prisons that I stupidly prepared with traps of flowers and fruits and ribbons, when he came. Artificial paradises that rotted slowly, paradise of myself – so banal and thirsty – tolerating all his extravagances, what surely sounded ridiculous, pathetic and stingy. Now I just slip, without those excessive distresses of being happy.

The mornings were good to wake up inside of them, drinking a coffee, looking at the weather. The objects are good to look at them, without frights, because they are what they are and they look at us as well, with eyes that do not think anything. Since I sent him away, to be able to finally learn the big delusion of the paradise, I feel like that: almost without feel.

It remains the story I’m telling, are you still listening to me? Loose notes on the table, filled ashtrays, empty glasses and this napkin of paper where I took note some apparently wise phrases about love and God, with one phrase I’m afraid of decipher and maybe, after all, it says something simple like: nothing of this exists.

Nothing, nothing of this exists.

Then I almost throw up and cry and bleed when I think like that. But I breathe deeply, rub the palms of the hands, and generate energy in myself. To keep me alive, I keep looking for illusions like the herbs’ smell or the greenish reflections of squamas in my apartment and, when I find some, even if it’s only in my mind, I become then able to affirm again, as in a harmless addiction: I have a dragon that lives with me. And, in this way, I start a new story that, in this time, would be completely true, even being completely lie. I get tired of the love I feel, and in a huge effort that slowly becomes a kind of modest joy, late night, alone in this apartment in the middle of this so scarce of dragons city, I repeat and repeat this my confused learning to the child-me-myself sitting anxious and with cold on the knees of the serene old-me-myself:

“Sleep, only the dream exists. Sleep, my son. Be sweet.”

No, this also is not true.

Dobrada À Moda Do Porto (Tripe à la Porto)

2011-12-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

One day at a restaurant outside of space and time,

they served me love as a cold tripe.
I gently said to the missionary of the kitchen
that I preferred it warm,
that the tripe (and it was à la Porto) can never be eaten cold.

They fidgeted with me.
We can never have reason, even in a restaurant.
I did not eat, I did not ask for anything else, I paid the bill,
then I came to walk across the street.

Who knows what this means?
I do not know, but it was with me...

(I know very well that in everyone's childhood there was a garden,
a private or public one, or of the neighbor.
I know very well that playing was being its owner.
And that the sadness is from today.)

I know that many times,
but, if I asked for love, why they brought me
cold tripe à la Porto?
It is not the type of dish that we can eat cold,
but they brought me cold.
I did not complain, but it was cold,
we can never eat it cold, but it was cold.

Um dia, num restaurante, fora do espaço e do tempo,

Serviram-me o amor como dobrada fria.
Disse delicadamente ao missionário da cozinha
Que a preferia quente,
Que a dobrada (e era à moda do Porto) nunca se come fria.

Impacientaram-se comigo.
Nunca se pode ter razão, nem num restaurante.
Não comi, não pedi outra coisa, paguei a conta,
E vim passear para toda a rua.

Quem sabe o que isto quer dizer?
Eu não sei, e foi comigo…

(Sei muito bem que na infância de toda a gente houve um jardim,
Particular ou público, ou do vizinho.
Sei muito bem que brincarmos era o dono dele.
E que a tristeza é de hoje).

Sei isso muitas vezes,
Mas, se eu pedi amor, porque é que me trouxeram
Dobrada à moda do Porto fria?
Não é prato que se possa comer frio,
Mas trouxeram-mo frio.
Não me queixei, mas estava frio,
Nunca se pode comer frio, mas veio frio.

Fernando Pessoa

Versos de Natal (Christmas Verses)

2011-12-14T23:35:00.000-08:00

Mirror, my true friend,
You reflect my wrinkles,
my white hairs,
my tired and short-sighted eyes.
Mirror, my true friend,
Master of the thorough and exact realism,
Thank you, thank you!

But if you were magic,
You’d penetrate to the bottom of this sad man,
You’d discover the boy that holds this man,
The boy that does not want to die,
That will not die but with me,
The boy that every year in the Christmas Eve
Still think of leaving his small shoes on the window.

(Original)

Espelho, amigo verdadeiro,
Tu refletes as minhas rugas,
Os meus cabelos brancos,
Os meus olhos míopes e cansados.
Espelho, amigo verdadeiro,
Mestre do realiismo exato e minucioso,
Obrigado, obrigado!

Mas se fosses mágico,
Penetrarias até o fundo desse homem triste,
Descobririas o menino que sustenta esse homem,
O menino que não quer morrer,
Que não morrerá senão comigo,
O menino que todos os anos na véspera do Natal
Pensa ainda em por seus chinelinhos atrás da porta.

Manuel Bandeira

José

2011-12-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

What now, José?
The party is ended,
the light is off,
the people left,
the night is cold,
what now, José?
What now, you?
you who is nameless,
who scoff everybody,
you who makes verses,
who loves and protests?
What now, José?

You are without woman,
without speech,
without caress.
you cannot drink,
you cannot smoke,
even spit you cannot.
The night became cold,
the day didn’t arrive,
the tram didn’t arrive,
the smile didn’t arrive,
didn’t arrive even the utopia.
And everything ended
and everything fled
and everything molded,
what now, José?

What now, José?
Your sweet word,
your moment of fever,
your greediness and fasting,
your library,
your golden mine,
your suit of glass,
your inconsistency,
your hate – what now?

With the key in your hand
you want to open the door,
there is no door;
you want to die in the sea,
but the sea dried;
you want go to Minas,
Minas doesn’t exist anymore.
José, what now?

If you yelled,
if you groaned,
if you played
the Vienesse waltz,
if you slept,
if you tired,
if you died…
But you don’t die,
you are tough, José!

Alone in the darkness
like a backwoodsman,
without theogony,
without bare wall
to lean yourself,
without a black horse
that flee galloping,
you march, José!
José, where to?

(Original)

E agora, José?
A festa acabou,
a luz apagou,
o povo sumiu,
a noite esfriou,
e agora, José?
e agora, você?
você que é sem nome,
que zomba dos outros,
você que faz versos,
que ama, protesta?
e agora, José?

Está sem mulher,
está sem discurso,
está sem carinho,
já não pode beber,
já não pode fumar,
cuspir já não pode,
a noite esfriou,
o dia não veio,
o bonde não veio,
o riso não veio,
não veio a utopia
e tudo acabou
e tudo fugiu
e tudo mofou,
e agora, José?

E agora, José?
Sua doce palavra,
seu instante de febre,
sua gula e jejum,
sua biblioteca,
sua lavra de ouro,
seu terno de vidro,
sua incoerência,
seu ódio — e agora?

Com a chave na mão
quer abrir a porta,
não existe porta;
quer morrer no mar,
mas o mar secou;
quer ir para Minas,
Minas não há mais.

José, e agora?
Se você gritasse,
se você gemesse,
se você tocasse
a valsa vienense,
se você dormisse,
se você cansasse,
se você morresse...
Mas você não morre,
você é duro, José!

Sozinho no escuro
qual bicho-do-mato,
sem teogonia,
sem parede nua
para se encostar,
sem cavalo preto
que fuja a galope,
você marcha, José!
José, para onde?

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

“Se Eu Fosse Um Padre” ("If I Were a Priest")

2011-12-11T08:41:00.001-08:00

If I were a priest, I, in my sermons,

would not talk about God nor about sin

- and never about the rebelled angel

and the spell of his seductions.

I would not mention the saints and prophets:

nothing about the heavenly promises

or about its terrible curses…

If I were a priest I would quote the poets.

I would pray their verses, the most beautiful ones,

those ones that dandled me since my childhood

- I wish some of them were mine!

Because the poesy purifies the soul

… a beautiful poem – even if it is secluded from God –

A beautiful poem always takes us to God!

(Original)
Se eu fosse um padre, eu, nos meus sermões,

não falaria em Deus nem no Pecado

- muito menos no Anjo Rebelado

e os encantos das suas seduções,

não citaria santos e profetas:

nada das suas celestiais promessas

ou das suas terríveis maldições…

Se eu fosse um padre eu citaria os poetas,

Rezaria seus versos, os mais belos,

desses que desde a infância me embalaram

e quem me dera que alguns fossem meus!

Porque a poesia purifica a alma

… a um belo poema – ainda que de Deus se aparte -

um belo poema sempre leva a Deus!

Mario Quintana