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Poema de Natal/ Christmas Poem
Para isso fomos feitos:
Para lembrar e ser lembrados,
Para chorar e fazer chorar,
Para enterrar os ossos mortos–
Por isso temos bracos longos para os adeuses,
Maos para colher o que foi dado,
Dedos para cavar a terra.
Assim sera nossa vida;
Uma tarde sempre a esquecer,
Uma estrela a se apargar na treva,
Um caminoho entre dois tumulos–
Por isso precisamos velar,
Falar baixo, pisar leve, ver
A noite dormir em silencio.
Nao ha muito que dizer:
Uma cancao sobre um berco,
Um verso, talvez, de amor,
Uma prece por quem se vai–
Mas que essa hora nao esquecaE
E que por ela os nosses coracoes
Se deixem, graves e simples.
Pois para isso fomos feitos:
Para a esperanca no milagare,
Para a participacao de poesia,
Para ver a face da morte–
De repente, nunca mais esperaremos…
Hoje a noitre e jovem; da morte apenas
Nascemos, imensamente.
Vinicius de Moraes, born in Brazil 1913
Christmas Poem
For this we were created:
To recall and to be recalled
To weep and to cause to weep
To bury our dead–
Therefore our long arms for farewells
Hands to gather what was given
Fingers to dig in the earth.
So this will be our life;
Always an afternoon to forget,
A star ending in darkenss
A roadway between two tombs–
Therefore we need to watch,
To speak low, to tread softly, to see
Night sleeping in slience.
There is not much to say:
A song about a cradle
A verse, perhaps of love
A prayer for one going away–
But do not forget this hour
And by it may our hearts
Be left, sober and innocent.
Then for this we were created:
For hope in the miracle
For sharing in poetry
For seeing the face of death–
Suddenly no more shall we wait…
Today the night is young; from death
We are born, immensely.
Translated from the Portuguese by Ashley Brown
From something in the trees
looking down at me
or else an inexact sign
of a remote and artificial tenderness–
a woman who passes me
and who will not consider me–
things I have tried to take
with which to make something
like a toy for my children
and a story to be quietly forgotten.
Oh God, send me an omen
that I may remember more often.
Keep me, see to me,
let me look.
Being unsure, there is the fate
of doing nothing right.
Robert Creeley (1926-2005)
