Conquistense Poetry 09: The magic of Hildegardes Veloso Part 03
This here is part 3/3 of this book's translation. The first and the second can be found here and here, respectively. Also, this is the best part in my opinion. "The light of your eyes" is my favorite one from the whole book.
Paixão desenfreada (Unbridled passion)
"A chuva cai...
Rompe o silêncio
a cidade imensa parece dormir,
portas e janelas se fecham.
O vento é frio, é forte, parece
vir do norte...
Ninguém na rua
não sei se é solidão
ou se é sorte.
A chuva cai...
Uma menina surge vagarosa
e me atrai, parece uma rosa
orvalhada.
E o poeta naquela estrada
já não sente frio, já
não sente nada.
Só uma paixão desenfreada."
"Falls the rain...
Breaks the silence.
The immense city seems asleep,
doors and windows are shut.
The wind is cold, strong, northern...
Nobody in the streets.
Is this luck, or solitude?
I don't know.
The rain falls...
A girl appears, strolling about,
and captures my attention,
—looking like a dew-kissed rose.—
And the poet down that road
no longer feels cold,
no longer feels anything...
But an unbridled passion."
Necessidade de amar (Need to love)
"Cuidarei dos teus olhos
nestas manhãs límpidas
encarregar-me-ei de levá-la
até o horizonte, e, entre os
raios de sol, ver o teu corpo
lindo a bailar.
E quando descer o sol poente
e a noite chegar
quero sentir de uma forma
ou de outra, a extrema necessidade
de te amar..."
"I'll take care of your eyes
in these clear mornings;
I'll take upon myself to bring you
to the horizon, and, amidst sunbeams,
watch your beautiful body
dancing.
And once the setting sun goes down,
and night falls,
I want to feel,
in one way or another,
an extreme need to love you..."
Um lugar muito distante (Somewhere far away)
"Até parece sonhos...
Eu pude vir de um lugar
muito distante.
Não sei dizer...
Talvez eu estivesse vindo do sul,
do leste, do oeste ou quem sabe do norte.
Só sei dizer. Que percorri
caminhos floridos e enluarados,
e ao meu redor havia pássaros
e o seu canto era a minha
linguagem, e a minha linguagem
era a sua, mas nem mesmo
eu te conhecia...
Eu nunca tive sonhos assim
mas, sinceramente, gostei muito,
pois não eram sonhos
eu e você existimos
realmente..."
"Feels like a dream...
I could've come from a place far away.
I don't know...
Maybe I came from the South,
the East, or West or, who knows, maybe even the North.
All I can say is that,
I have walked flowery and moonlit paths,
and around me the birds would fly
and their song was my
language, and my language
was theirs; but I didn't even
know you...
I've never had dreams like this before
but, honestly, I really liked it,
because that wasn't a dream,
you and I really exist..."
Naquela noite (On that night)
"Naquela noite...
Não encontrei espaço
para que outra estrela
em mim, pudesse repousar
foi necessário que gaivotas
verdes e imensas trouxessem-me
teus árduos beijos.
Foi necessário que toda
espécie de pássaros desse
mundo azul, entedesse
a minha linguagem..."
"On that night...
I couldn't find space
for another star
to rest in me.
It was necessary that seagulls,
green and immense, brought to me
your ardent kisses.
It was necessary for every
kind of bird in this
blue planet, to understand
my language..."
A luz dos teus olhos (The light of your eyes)
"Por acaso a luz dos teus olhos
entrelaçou-se com a luz dos meus
olhos, e juntos descobrimos
que o amor é tão rápido
quanto a luz..."
"By chance, the light of your eyes
intertwined with the light of my
eyes, and together we discovered
that love is as fast
as light..."
A realidade de um sonho (The reality of a dream)
"Te olhar a fundo
esquecer o mundo.
Ter-te como a realidade
de um sonho.
Buscar teus olhos, saborear teus beijos,
amar-te como amo a noite.
Você é o sonho e eu
apenas sonho possuir-te..."
"To look at you deeply,
and forget everything.*
Have you as the reality
of a dream.
Seeking your eyes, savoring your kisses,
loving you as I love the night.
You are the dream and I
only dream of having you..."
*"Te olhar a fundo / esquecer o mundo." this is the single verse that made me realize how important it is to keep alive the legacy of Hildegardes Veloso. Despite the sheer amount of not-so-good poems he has published, it's for little spots of shiny pure gold like this verse that I live for. Poetry is beautiful, but beautifuler is the Portuguese language, and even further, what we Brazilians can do with it. Doesn't matter if it's a Drummond or a Hildegardes Veloso, every Brazilian has this hidden potential inside, of making art in the utmost sense of the word. This country is made of art and that's beautiful. Too bad the rest of the world can't care to dig a little deeper.