What an incomplete silence among so many sounds! Now, and only now, they are trying to tell us that they loved and they forgot, and always remained far from any final truth. Love is an unredeemable debt contracted in the dark and only death can free the debtors from default.

Everything will reach its end in an ocean of shadows. The dead also cease, after so many tears, and masses sung and notices in the daily newspapers. We are born to evaporate, after having been water lapping at the boatyard launching ramp. We are born to say our name to the wind.

Our bodies crawled to the entrance of the cave. But where were our souls at that moment of ecstasy and bondage? They were hidden like bats, sleeping, as placid as placentas.

© Translation: 2010, Alexis Levitin
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2010

O SILÊNCIO INCOMPLETO

Que silêncio incompleto entre tantos rumores! Agora, e só agora, eles tentam dizer-nos que amaram e esqueceram, e sempre ficaram longe da verdade final. O amor é uma dívida irresgatável contraída na escuridão e só morte libera os pagadores relapsos.

Tudo terminará num oceano de sombras. Os mortos também acabam, após tantas lágrimas e missas cantadas e anúncios nos jornais. Nascemos para nos evaporar, após ter sido a água que cobre a rampa do estaleiro. Nascemos para dizer o nosso nome ao vento.

Nossos corpos rastejaram até a entrada da gruta. Mas onde estavam as almas naquele instrante de êxtase e servidão? Estavam escondidas como os morcegos, dormiam plácidas como as placentas.

© 1990, Lêdo Ivo
From: Crepúsculo Civil
Publisher: Editora Record, Rio de Janeiro, 1990

For more biographical information please visit the link below

http://brazil.poetryinternational.org.poetryinternationalweb.org
/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=17173&x=1

"After completing his law degree, Lêdo Ivo (Brazil, 1924) began working as a journalist, alongside which he has written poetry, stories, novels and essays. He was born in Maceió, the capital of the Alagoas confederation in the north-east of Brazil. The city is situated on a peninsula, and images of tidal forests, home to crabs and other amphibious animals; dunes; spits of land; abandoned shipyards and shipwrecks are characteristic of his poems."

Internet source: http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/
cms_module/index.php?obj_name=international