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My name is Severino
Or so I was baptized.
But of the many Severinos,
The name of a saint
You take on pilgrimage I was called
Severino of Maria.
Of the many Severinos With mothers called Maria,
They called me Severino of Maria Of the dead Zacarias.
But that doesn't clear it up.
There are lots of us in the area
Because of a landowner
Called Zacarias
Who's been here the longest
In all the land.
How then can I tell you Who is now speaking to you?
Look:
it's the Severino
of Maria of the dead Zacarias
from the hills of Costela
on the border of Paraíba
But that's not enough.
There were at least five of us
Called Severino,
who were sons of so many other
Women of so many others
Dead Zacarias,
Who lived in the same Lean and bony hills where I lived.
There are many Severinos
With the same lives as mine,
With the same big head That won't balance
On the same big belly
On the same skinny legs.
And they are all the same and have the same weak blood which has so little strength.
And all of us Severinos
With the same lives
Will die of the same
Severe Severino death,
The death died of Old age before thirty
Of an ambush before twenty
And of hunger day by day,
Of severe weakness And several illnesses
That sever off at any age
Even unborn children.
We have many Severinos,
The same in all And in all the same.
We break these stones, We sweat over them,
We try to wake The arid land.
We try to work The burnt out ash.
Now, for you to know me better
And follow my life,
I become the Severino
Who migrates before your eyes.
-Who do you carry ? ''Brothers of the souls''
Wrapped up in the sheet?
Tell me so I know.
-A corpse, worth nothing, ''Brother of the souls'',
Who's been going home For many hours.
-Do you know who he was ? ''Brothers of the souls'',
What his name is Or what he was called ?
-Severino who worked the land, ''Brother of the souls'',
Severino who worked the land,
But now he can't.
-And from where do you bring him, ''Brothers of the souls'',
Where was it that Yourjourney began?
-Where the Caatinga is most barren, ''Brother of the souls'',
Where you won't even find A single wild plant.
-And was this death died ? ''Brothers of the souls'',
Was this death died, Or was he killed?
-No, it wasn't died, ''Brother of the souls'',
This death was killed In an ambush.
-And what did the ambush want ? ''Brothers of the souls'',
Was he shot or stabbed? How was he killed?
-He was killed by a bullet, ''Brother of the souls'',
A bullet is more sure,
It goes in deeper.
-And who ambushed him? ''Brothers of the souls'',
Who was it let fly This deadly bullet?
-It's difficult to be sure, ''Brother of the souls'',
There's always a bullet flying That comes from nowhere.
-And what had he done? ''Brothers of the souls'',
What had he done Against such a bird?
-He had a piece of land, ''Brother of the souls''.
He farmed a plot of land, Some land of stony sand.
-But what crops did he have? ''Brothers of the souls'',
What could he plant In the arid rock?.
-In the bare patches of sand ''Brother of the souls'',
Between the stones
He planted straw.
-And was his land very big? ''Brothers of the souls'',
Can men shoot to kill For such bumpy ground ?
-It wasjust a few square yards, ''Brother of the souls'',
All at the foot of the hills
With no pasture.
-So why then did they kill him ? ''Brothers of the souls'',
Why then was he killed By a shotgun?
-Because it spread its wings, ''Brother of the souls'',
Because this birdlike bullet Wanted to be free.
-And now what will happen, ''Brothers of the souls'' ?
What can be done Against this shotgun ?
-It needs more room to fly, ''Brother of the souls'',
Room to set free Its twin bullets.
-And where are you burying him, ''Brothers of the souls'' ?
With his seed of lead Right inside him.
-In the Cemetery of Torrês, ''Brother of the souls'',
Which now is called Toritama, In the early morning.
-Can I help, ''Brothers of the souls'' ?
I'm going through Toritama,
It's on my way.
-That would be good, ''Brother of the souls'',
It's a ''brother of the souls'' Who hears our call.
-And one of us can go back, ''Brother of the souls'',
Go back from here, Go back home.
-I'll go, for thejourney's long, ''Brother of the souls''.
Thejourney's very long And the hills are steep.
-The corpse has more luck ''Brother of the souls'',
Now he won't have to go back, Go back on foot.
-Toritama's not far, ''Brother of the souls'',
We'll be on holy ground At the first crack of dawn.
-Let's go while it's night, ''Brother of the souls'',
Dark night's the beast sheet
To cover the dead.
Before leaving home,
I learnt to recite
The places I would pass On my longjourney.
I know there are many big places,
Towns they're called.
I know there are towns and villages of all sizes,
All forming a rosary Where the road is the string.
I must pray on this rosary To the sea where it ends,
Jumping from one bead to another,
Passing from one place to another.
Now I see:
It's not easy To follow this chant.
Between the beads,
Between the Ave Marias,
There are bare pastures,
Their crops and stock gone,
Their owners gone,
Where no foot treads.
I don't want to tangle The string of my beads
Up in the rough Bristles of this Caatinga.
I thought that following the river I would never get lost.
It's the best way,
The best guide.
But how can I follow it now
It's dried up?
Now I can see that the River Capibaribe, Like the rivers in the hills,
Is so poor that it can't always Follow its fate.
Is so poor that it can't always Follow its fate.
And in summer it dries up And its legs can't walk.
Now I must find out
Which of these wide-open paths
Is the right one.
But there's no one around.
Not a livining or dying soul
I canjust hear in the distance
Some singing.
Could it be a song to a saint ?
Could it be a May song to Mary?
Maybe it's a party Or even a dance ?
-Dead Severino,
When you reach Jordan
And the devils block your way
And ask what you carry...
-Tell them you carry wax, A hood and cord,
And the *** Mary of Conception.
-Dead Severino,
When you reach Jordan
And the devils block your way
And ask what you carry...
-Tell them you're only taking Things of no worth,
Hunger, thirst and poverty.
-Dead Severino,
When you reach Jordan
And the devils block your way
And ask what you carry...
-Tell them you're only taking Things of no worth,
Hollow and empty things Like the coffin you still owe for.
-A dirge to say it's now time.
-Let the bearers come.
The body wants to leave
-Two dirges...
-To say it's time to sow the land.
-Let the bearers come...
-The land will reap the hand.
-Dead Severino,
-Since I began myjourney I've only seen death at work.
I've only met death
Even at a party.
I wanted to find life But only saw death.
And the little that wasn't death
Was that hard Severino life,
Less a life than a struggle,
And even more severe For the man who leaves home.
I think:
Why couldn't I stop here
And like the Capibaribe Interrupt myjourney,
At least until next winter's waters
Take me to the sea
When its course is taken up again.
I could stop here For a time
And take up thejourney again When I'm less tired.
Or if I break myjourney here,
Will I never start again ?
Is the water from these wells All drunk up by
The tongues of the bushes,
The animals and the sun ?
And when the next winter rain comes
Will there still be some of Last winter's water in the wells ?
But this we'll see,
I've got time to decide,
But I must first find Some work to live on.
Over there there's a woman at her window.
She might not be rich,
At least she looks as if She owns her own life.
Maybe she can tell me About some work.
-A good day to you madam, Lady at the window.
Please tell me if there's a chance To find some work here ?
-There's always work here For anyone who wants.
Tell me what you did And where you came from.
-I always worked the land,
Worked bad land.
There's no kind of land I can't handle.
-That's no good here.
There's not much land to work.
But traveller please tell me
What else you did there.
-In my land too There's not much real land,
But I know how to plough
Right through the stones.
-That's no good either.
There are no stones here to crush,
But tell me young man
What else you did there.
-I know all the plants This land will grow,
Cotton, castor, mamona, Caroa, maize, pita.
-The bank won't give loans To grow these crops,
But tell me, traveller, What else you did there.
-I'm better than anyone At cutting right back
All the weeds that grow That I see around here.
-These weeds are all The land grows here.
But traveller, please tell me
What else you did there.
-I've pulled manioc out of the ground
Which the wind comes to bruise
or the sun comes to scorch.
-This is not Vitoria Or Gloria of Goitá,
But as well as work the land, tell me
What else you did there.
-I can look after cattle,
Keep them away from nettles,
Make them eat from the ground Or from the branches in the air.
-This is not Surubim, Or Limoeiro. My God! If it were!
But traveller, please tell me
What else you did there.
-I can boil up the sugar cane, Use any of the pans.
I can look after a cane crusher
And purify the sugar.
-With the big sugar mills The small places have gone.
But isn't there anything else You learnt to do there?
-There no one learnt anotherjob,
Or will ever,
But you learn to put up with
The deadly sun.
-So this is everything You know how to do.
Please tell me traveller What else you did there.
-If you really want to know what I did there:
I ate when there was food,
And when there was I worked, And when there wasn't I worked.
-Here farming isjust A family business,
But tell me traveller
Can you bless and chant prayers,
Sing the funeral dirges,
And bury the dead?
-I've watched over many dead,
In the hills it's so common,
But I never learnt the words,
Ijust follow them.
-If you only knew How to pray or sing,
We could work together As there's plenty of demand.
-Now let me speak,
It's my turn to ask you.
How can you madam Maintain your home?
-I'll tell you quickly, You'll soon learn.
As here so many die, I live by helping death.
-And if you permit me To ask you again,
Is such a strangejob Here a profession ?
-A profession it is, The best of all.
I'm the top mourner All around here.
-And if you please let me Ask you again,
Does this profession you're in Bring you some money?
-From many miles away The people call me in.
I can't complain Of any bad luck.
-And if you let me ask you For the last time.
Isn't there anything eIse I couId do here?
-As here death's so common,
You can only work In ajob that deals with death
Or sells death.
Think of the other people
From similarjobs,
Chemists, Gravediggers,
Doctors with their rings to ring out the dead,
Rowing against the current Of those who go down to the sea,
Migrants the wrong way round, They come up from the sea.
Here you can only plant The crops of death,
And growing them is easy;
You just plant them;
You don't clean the ground,
Fertilize or water.
The drought and diseases Help them even more.
Profit is instant,
And you don't Need to wait for the harvest.
You're paid when you sow.
It's the way they told me - the land Is softer and gentler
As you get to the coast.
Now I've arrived In this land they've told me about.
It's a sweet land for Your feet and for your sight.
The rivers here Have life-giving waters.
There are wells everywhere;
If you dig the ground you find water.
I can now see that what I thought Was a lie, is true.
Maybe here I can plant My destiny.
I'm not afraid of the land,
I've dug stones all my life.
And for anyone who fought
Against the arid Caatinga,
It will be easier to soften This so feminine land.
But I can't see anyone,
Just leaves of thin sugar cane.
Only there in the distance A sugar plant chimney,
Only in that meadow
A ruined sugar mill.
Where are the people who grow All the sugar cane ?
On holiday:
In this easy, sweet And rich land
You needn't work All day long,
All month long, All life long.
I'm sure the people here Don't get old at thirty
Or don't know about death in life, That severe Severino death in life.
And I'm sure that cemetery there
On the green hill
Is not used much And has few graves.
-The grave you're in
Is measured by hand,
The best bargain you got In all the land.
-You fit it well,
Not too long or deep,
The part of the latifundio Which you will keep.
-The grave's not too big,
Nor is it too wide,
It's the land you wanted To see them divide.
-It's a big grave
For a body so spare,
But you'll be more at ease
Than you ever were.
-You're a skinny corpse
For such a big tomb,
But at least down there
You'll have plenty of room.
-The grave is big
For your skin and bone,
But when land is given,
You can hardly moan.
-You'll live here for ever
In the land you have got,
And you'll have your own plot.
Here you'll always remain.
Free from the sun and rain,
-Growing your own ants,
-Now you'll work for yourself,
You won't give up your right arm
Working on the boss's farm.
Lord, labourer and tractor,
You'll work the soil And get all the spoils.
-Working this land,
You'll get no rest,
You'll be seed, fertilizer and harvest.
-You'll work on a land That will clothe you and give you peace
In the cloth of the Northeast.
-You'll dress as never before.
And your last shirt Will be made of dirt.
-It'll be of dirt And your last shirt.
It'll clothe you and no one will envy you.
-For the first time in your life You'll have a suit
Of soil and a pair of boots.
-And as you're a man, You'll get a hat for a male.
If you were a woman, a shawl or veil.
-Your best clothes Will be of earth and not of cloth.
They won't tear
and will never rot.
-In your best clothes You'll look a man of leisure
With clothes made to measure.
-This land you know well,
It drank the sweat you sold.
-This land you know well,
It sapped up your spirit of youth.
-This land you know well,
It shrank your manliness.
-This land knows you well,
Through friends and relations.
-This land knows you well,
You'll live with your wife and children.
-This land knows you well,
It's been waiting since you were born.
-You have no force left,
Let yourself be sown lengthways.
-You have no live seed,
Your body is its own shoot.
-You have no sugar cane sprout.
You are the sprout but not of cane.
-You have no seed in your hand;
You are the grain.
-You have no strength in your leg;
Let yourself be sown in the grave.
-You have no strength in your hand;
Let yourself be sown in the furrows.
-In the hammock nothing coming,
Only your threshed husk.
-In the hammock a lot coming,
Only your chewed up shuck.
-In the hammock something scarce,
Toothless swill.
-In the hammock very little,
Your life with no second harvest.
-In your right hand a rosary,
Black dried corn.
-In your right hand only the rosary,
dry seed.
-In the right hand, the rosary
Of ash, barren seed.
-In the right hand the rosary,
Inert and lifeless seed.
-Naked you came in the coffin,
Naked also the grain is buried.
-Poverty unclothed you so much,
That the wind left your chest.
-You took off so many things in life, That the cool breeze left your chest.
-And now the ground opens to shelter you, The sheet you never had in your life.
-The ground opens and covers you, It gives you blanket and bed.
-The ground opens and wraps you Like a woman to sleep with.
I never expected much,
I'll tell you now.
What made me leave Wasn't greed.
Ijust wanted to defend myself
From the old age You reach before you're thirty.
I got to twenty in the hills.
If I lasted so long there,
I thought that if I left, I could extend it a bit more,
But I didn't feel any difference Between the rocky Agreste and the dry Caatinga,
And between the dry Caatinga and the fertile Mata here.
There's hardly any difference.
It'sjust that the land Here is softer;
It'sjust the wick That burns in the lamp
Because the oil's the same That lights up everywhere.
Whether in this fertile land
Or on the debris covered hills
Life always burns With the same deathly flame.
Now I know why the river
Doesn't stop in these pastures
In wells As it does in the dry Caatinga.
It exists by running away from the still waters
Where the landscape invites it to stop,
But it's afraid of stopping, However tired it is.
It's better to hurry to The end of this chant,
The end of the rosary of names Along the thread of the river
And arrive soon at Recife,
The last Ave Maria of the rosary,
The end of the chant,
Recife, where the river disappears And myjourney ends.
-It's getting more and more difficult, Where is it going to end ?
They should give us more money, At least in ourjob.
The avenues in the middle are best, Butjust the people with connections are there.
There's always less work And plenty of tips.
And there are more workers. (It takes longer to bury the rich.)
-But I'd be happy If I could be sent here.
If you worked in the Casa Amarela, You wouldn't be complaining.
You should be happy To work here in Santo Amaro
Because it seems that the people Who are buried in the Casa Amarela
Have all decided To move underground.
-It'sjust that you haven't yet seen How busy it is. It's not what you see now.
Stay a minute And the corpses that will
Stay a minute And the corpses that will
Arrive (or leave, I'm not sure) Will appear
The middle avenues Where the rich are buried
Are like the sea port:
There's not much work,
At the most a transatlantic liner Arrives every day
With a lot of pomp and ceremony And big scenes.
But this part Is like the station,
Many times a day Someone's train arrives.
-But if your section is like Central Station,
What can you say about Casa Amarela,
Where the coming and going never stops?
It could be like a station, But not a train station.
It could be like a bus stop With queues of more than a hundred.
-So, as the work's lighter And yourjob's fixed,
And you've been there for a long time Why don't you ask For a move to Santo Amaro ?
I don't think they'd send you to The nice avenues
Where the good addresses are, The posh people's district.
The district of the sugar factory owners,
And, years ago, the mill owners.
(Now, these are buried in white urns.)
It's also the district of the industrialists,
The members of employers' associations,
Those who were more horizontal In the liberal professions.
It's difficult to get ajob there To start with.
-Ijust asked them to send me To the ordinary estates
With their high blocks And their stone rooms.
This is the district of the salary earners, Including the extranumeraries,
Contracted and monthly, (But not those paid hourly and daily.)
There go thejournalists, The writers and artists;
Also the bank workers, The high-level shopkeepers,
The shopworkers, the chemists, The local air workers
And those of the liberal professions Who never liberated themselves.
-We also have a district for them In the Casa Amarela.
Each in his pigeon-hole, Each in his drawer,
With the name on the tile Nearly always in black
Gold letters are As rare as tips.
-Only the rich Give tips here.
You can't work In shirt sleeves.
You must wear a cap And a clean starched uniform.
-But it isn't for the tips I came to ask for a move:
It's because there's less work, And I want to come to Santo Amaro;
Here there are more people
To attend the customers,
To put the full box In the empty hole.
-And what will the Manager say? Did he listen to you?
-If it's possible, He'll see to my request.
-Was this all you Got out of him?
-They left me in the Casa Amarela, But changed the district.
-And where are you going now ? Which district is yours ?
-I'm going to the factory workers And the railway workers
And all the road workers And the security guards.
-So you're going to the workers And leaving the poor:
It's better: they're not so contagious And are much less numerous.
-That's right: I leave the slum
Where all the poor people
Drowned by high tide And suffocated by low tide are buried.
-They are people with no shelter, With nothing in their arms,
Who never wear black And who are buried without a pass.
-The people who are buried for free, The dead who never stop coming.
-They are the migrants Who come from the distant Sertão
-They unwrap their packs And reach the end of their line.
-And so when they arrive, They can look forward to nothing.
-They can't carry on, They have to fight against a sea.
-They have nowhere to work, Nowhere to live.
-And the way things are going, They'll have nowhere to be buried.
-Some time ago I lived in the slums
And one thing I noticed Which I'll never understand:
These people who come down From the Sertão to the coast, for no reason
Live in the mire, Eating the little crabs they catch,
And when their death comes,
We have to bury them in dry earth.
-It would be quicker And much cheaper
If they were thrown off a bridge Into the river and death.
-The river gives a shroud
And even a soft water coffin
And a slow dirge To take the corpse to his
Final burial
In the salt sea.
-You don't need any money, You don't need a gravedigger,
You don't need a prayer,
You don't need a pass.
-But that's not what you see.
Our work is growing every day.
There are people who die
Who never lived.
-They are the people
From the hills of Pernambuco, and from Paraiba,
Who hope to die of old age in Recife,
But only find cemeteries waiting.
-It's not ajourney they're making,
Coming through the Caatinga and plains.
That's their error:
They're following their own funeral.
I never expected much,
I must say it again.
I knew that on the rosary Of towns and villages,
And even when I had come down here to Recife,
Life from day to day Would be no different.
Always spades and hoes,
Scythes and the long grass,
Shears and clippers
Would be waiting for me.
But if I would use
The same old tools,
I hoped, I have to say, In the little room
For a bit more water,
More flour in the gourd,
A shirt of cotton
Or a longer lease on life.
Now I'm here, I realise That on thejourney I made
From the Sertão
I was following my own funeral Without knowing.
Just that I must have arrived A few days early.
The funeral's waiting at the door;
The dead man still has life.
The solution is to ask Death to make up its mind
And ask this river
That comes from the hills
To give me the funeral The gravedigger told:
A soft mud coffin,
A wreath of water lilies,
With floating philodendrons And that dirge
Of the water that never stops.
(The river, here in Recife,
goes
Never dries, never stops.)
-Joseph master carpenter,
You who live here in the mud.
Can you tell me if you can ever Cross the river?
Can you tell me if this Thick fleshy swamp is deep?
-Traveller Severino,
I've never swum across.
When the tide's high,
You can see many boats,
Barges, lighters,
All with their large draught.
-Joseph, master carpenter,
To cover up a man's body You don't need a lot of water,
Just up to his belly,
Just up to his hunger.
-Traveller Severino,
I don't know what to tell you.
When I cross the river, I go by the bridge.
As for the empty stomach, You cross the bridge when you eat.
-Joseph, master carpenter,
And when there's no bridge?
When the pains of hunger Can't cross the river ?
When these dry rivers Are long arms of the sea?
-Traveller Severino,
You're very young,
And I know misery is a big sea,
It's notjust a puddle,
But I know it's worth the effort To try to cross it.
-Joseph, master carpenter, And when the bottom is deep?
And when the strength that died Has nowhere to be buried ?
Can't you give in To the power of the water?
-Traveller Severino,
All the time, every way,
We must struggle against The sea of our task.
Or else it floods and Drowns the whole world.
-Joseph, master carpenter,
What difference is there
If we are shipwrecked By hunger
Or at high tide In the sea of misery ?
-Traveller Severino,
There's a lot of difference Between struggling with your hands And giving up the fight
Because at least this sea Can't reach any further.
-Joseph, master carpenter,
And what difference is there
If this empty ocean Increases its power or not
If no bridge can beat it ?
Joseph, master carpenter,
Let me ask you
Has your life been going Rotten for long here in the quagmire ?
-Traveller Severino,
I'm from Narazeth da Mata,
But there like here They never gave me credit.
Every day I have to pay For the life I buy.
-Joseph, master carpenter,
And what is there
In this life of odds and ends
Lived from day to day ?
Can I hope one day To buy some portions ?
-Traveller Severino,
I don't know what to tell you.
Don't hope to buy it In big portions,
But the odds and ends I buy Are, after all, life.
-Joseph, master carpenter,
What difference would it make, If instead of carrying on
I took the best way out,
And, one night,
Threw my life off the bridge ?
Joseph
Joseph
Joseph come on in, You lie on the grass,
You're busy chattering And you don't know your son is born.
You talk in Your fancy language and
You don't know you son Has jumped into life
And given his first cry. He's jumped into life,
And you're there nattering.
Well, now you know he's born.
-All heaven and earth Are praising him.
Because of him The tide stayed in tonight.
-Because of him The relentless tide stopped.
The mud was covered And the stench kept down.
-And the distant sea Sent the disinfectant
Of lavender seaweed To sweep our streets.
-And the wind from the land Sent its dry tongue of sponge
To lick the damp Out of the sodden quagmire.
-All heaven and earth Are praising him.
And every house Will embrace its occupants.
-And every shack will become The model shanty
The sociologists Love to study.
-And the band of mosquitoes Which is heard every night,
Because of him Will stay away tonight.
-And this blind river Dull from eating soil,
Which never reflects the sky, Has adorned itself with stars.
-I'm too poor to bring
A big present,
Just crabs for the mother
Caught in this mud.
Sucking milk from the mud
Preserves our blood.
-I am so poor,
I can offer you nothing,
Only the milk I have To feed my baby.
here all are brothers and sisters
Of milk, mud and air.
-I am so poor
I can bring nothing better,
Just newspaper To serve as a blanket.
If you cover him in letters. One day he'll be a doctor.
-I have no money
To buy something dear.
As I can't bring water
From the Lake of the Carro,
I bring you water from Olinda,
From the fountain of Rosário
-I'm too poor
To bring anything big.
I bring you this yellow finch
That chirps and sings.
-I'm too poor
To offer something rich.
I bring you some biscuits
You find only in Paudalho.
-I'm too poor
To buy something better.
I give you this mud statue
By Severino of Tracunhaêm.
-I'm too poor,
I have little to give you.
I give you some cane rum
The painter Monteiro made in Gravatá.
-Here's pineapple from Goiana
And sugar cane to suck from all over.
-Take these fresh oysters
Just gathered in Dawn Bay.
-Here are tamarinds from Jaqueira
Andjackfruit from Tamarindeira.
-Mangaba fruit from Casheweira
And cashews from Mangabeira.
-Fish caught in Birdtown,
Beef from Fishtown.
-Little crabs caught in the mud
At the back of Imperial Street.
-Mangoes bought in the wealthy suburbs
Of Thornbush and Affliction.
-Big crabs given by poor people From North and South Avenues.
-Your attention please
For our brief speech.
We are gypsies from Egypt
Who tell your fortunes.
I'll tell you all the things
I can see
In the life
Of this new-born boy.
He'll learn to crawl
With the mud crab.
He'll learn to walk
In the mire with the giant crabs.
And the water crabs
Will teach him how to run.
So he'll be amphibious Like everyone around here.
He'll soon begin to hunt,
First with the hens
Pecking along the ground At everything that smells like food,
Then
with other animals,
With the pigs in the dumps,
The dogs in the rubbish.
Years after I see him
On the Isle of Maruim
Dressed in black mud,
Returning from catching crabs;
And I see him, older,
Somewhere in this quagmire
Using his fingers as hooks
To catch shrimps.
-Your attention, please,
For my predictions.
I also come from Egypt.
I am here to complete the picture.
I can see other things
I must tell you-
He won't be fishing With a net all his life.
My friend forgot to Tell you all the lines.
Don't think his life Will be so useless.
I can see the calm of the life
Of a man with a position
Much healthier than life
in the mudflats.
I can see him in a factory,
Black, but not of mud,
But from the grease of his machine
Which is cleaner than the mud Of the low tide fishermen
We see here, clothed
In black from head to foot.
What's more:
So you won't think Everything in his life is sad,
I can see something he caught
Through his work:
A move form the mudflats
On the Capibaribe
To a better hut
On the mudflats of the Beberibe
-Of his beauty I can say something.
He's thin And light,
But he's the weight of a man From the womb of a woman.
-Of his beauty Let me say something.
He's pale and puny
But has the mark of a man
From the human workshop
-Of his beauty Let me sing to you.
He's a skinny kid Like all from these mudflats,
But the machine of mankind Already beats non-stop.
-His beauty has already been described.
He's small, Weak and premature,
But you can already see The hands that build things In his.
-Of his beauty Let me tell you.
He's as lovely as a coconut tree That conquers the sea sand.
-Of his beauty Let me tell you.
He's as lovely as the avelos plant On the grey Agreste.
-Of his beauty Let me tell you.
He's as lovely as the prickly pear tree On the dry Caatinga.
-Of his beauty Let me tell you.
He's as lovely as a yes In a room of noes.
-He's as lovely as a second Harvest of sugar cane.
-Lovely because he's a door To open more exits.
-Lovely as the last wave The end of the sea never brings.
As lovely as the waves -In their infinity.
-Lovely because he has the surprise Andjoy of the new.
-Lovely as something new
On an empty shelf.
-Like anything new Beginning its day.
-Like a new notebook When we open it.
-Lovely, as the new Decays the old.
-Lovely, as the new blood Destroys anemia.
-It infects misery With life and health.
-An oasis in the desert, The calm after the storm.
-Traveller Severino,
Let me tell you now
I don't know the answer To your question.
Whether you should Throw your life From the bridge.
But I don't know this answer.
If you want me to tell you,
You can't defend Life with just words,
More so when it's what You can see,
so hard.
But if I told you I didn't know the answer,
It,
Life itself told you (With it's own presence).
And there's no better answer Than to see life
Unravel its thread, Which is also called life,
See the factory Life itself stubbornly makes.
See it sprout and grow, like now, Explode into a new life,
Even when the explosion, Like that which too place, Like that before.
Even when the explosion, Like that which too place, So small.
Even when it's that of
A severe, Severino life. �