They are still ablaze, the eyes
of the fishes under these blood-red waters
in eighteen-hundred-eight,
and they are select, the oranges
of that May, suspended
between the branch and the act of picking them
(Blood oranges,
who will pick them?
Not Roberto,
who isn’t from around here).
The Old Bell Tower stands guard
over the Channel
and to Lacerda’s ballads it marks
the adagio assai of their tempo:
«I have as many saudades
as the sea has grains of sand…»
– what cliff will shelter
the bird that, in the voice of Mar-
garida gains altitude?
Like Ulysses I reject deafness:
I raise from the ground the stick spared by the fire,
I shall cling to it as I row
from shore to shore
from island to island.
Translation by Katharine F. Baker
(original português em Lugares Sombras e Afectos, com ilustrações de Seixas Peixoto. Figueira da Foz, ed. dos autores, 2005)