entre lágrima e sal
seca sal, sol que seca
entre chuva e a mão
horas, memórias que dá

a lágrima como chuva cai
cámera lenta, amor
ví o rosto de espelho
na sua joía líquida

descendo como raío
doa sal, olho que olha
de luz de dor de benção
que faz fechar as mãos

there was music so loud you could not sleep if you wanted to – but of course you did not want to sleep. the river of rhythm carried your body, unlike the river lethe, instead the river life. maybe it was better yet a river i had not witnessed, that my youth did not spoil its beauty in familiarity, rather deepened its shout and the shine of the lights upon its surface. the faces saw but did not acknowledge me: they were my face, and i was theirs. one body moved with the beat of a thousand hearts. and a thousand minds let go and became a single thought, held by the drums and the dance and the dream.

if it is a memory, then it has not been lost. even if the dancers, the drummers, and even the lover or lovers are simply a beat in that echoed parade. the difference between the music that carries me into the arms of another night, and that which carries "saudades" of a remembered morning, is so slight that i can scarcely find its thread. when i smile — just now — it is with love and not loss. only the tear that swells out of some corner of the heart, rises to the eye, and makes its way to light… that has been added by time.

where was this place? bem… um dia, encontrei uma mulher…

i owned a farm in old belém. the town perhaps was diminished from a former grace. at the top of the hill, beneath the broad arms of the figueiras, the old square still held a bench or two. somehow noble as a great grandparent, who could no longer provide, and hardly speak, but it the eyes were stories that would leak out of the evening air.

but that was later. there was the apartment on the park. i would hold the handle of the three-wheel plastic roadster, so my son could cross the road. we made turns around the paths there. i walked beside him as he widened his world. the flamboyant and jacaranda trees filled the sky with red and then purple. it was one city block, but large as he could imagine.

that, too, was later. there it is: the cement two-room where we lived up until his birth. that was where i was born. that was where he was conceived. that is where minnesota died. that is where the trio-elétrico inched down the street, and the loudspeakers dished live samba from their tin horns, and the entire street emptied from their homes to dance and sing half-way across the city, midnight, two, beyond…

entre ontem e manhã
vêm por-do-sol e…
olhe só
não é que o sol tá lá de novo?