SACRO LAVORO
the hands that write this line
were one day set to be a priest's
transforming bread and wine of feast
into flesh and blood of christ the lord
today they transform words to strike
accords between the obvious and the unexplored
life is the cows
you put in the river
to attract the piranhas
while the herd pass
we were born in diverse poems
it was fate's wish that we find each other
in the same strophe sister and brother
in the same verse the same phrases
rhyme at first sight we saw each other
trading what was synonymous
our gazes no longer anonymous
having read this far along
the same track and lines
of mine of yours of ours blended
one day
we were going to be homer
a work no less than an iliad
then later
the going getting rougher
maybe you could be a rimbaud
an ungaretti some fernando pessoa
a lorca an éluard a ginsberg
finally
we ended up the little provincial poet
we'd always been
behind so many masks
that time treated like flowers
i'm not the silence
that means to say words
or clap its hands
for performances of chance
I'm a river of words
I request a moment of silences
pauses waltzes calms penchants
and a touch of oblivion
just one and I can leave space
and beset with stars this theater
that's called time
VERDURE
(words and music; recorded by Caetano Veloso, 1979)
all a sudden
i recall the verdure
green the color
the greenest that may exist
the happiest color
saddest on the list
the green that you're wearing
the green you wore you insist
the day i couldn't miss you
the day you couldn't be missed
all a sudden
i sold my sons and daughters
to a family of americans
they've got the autos
they've got the money
they've got a house, see
and money's not funny
that's the only way they can go back
and catch Rio rays, get sandy and sunny
Translations by
CHARLES A. PERRONE
from Brasil/Brazil
a revista de estudos literários US/BR (Brown U. e UFRS)