Poem: José Régio | Translation: André Morais
"Come here"
Some people say to me
with welcoming eyes
openning their arms,
as they are sure
that would be better
if I gave them attention
whey they say "come here".
I look them with my trapping eyes,
and there are irony and tiredness in my eyes,
then I cross my arms and say "I don't go with them".
And that's my glory:
to create desunion!
to follow nobody.
'Cause I live with the same I-don't-want-to
by which I was pushed out of my mom's womb.
No, I don't go with them! I just go
by where my own steps take me....
If what I'm looking for, none of you you know
Why do you repeat to me: "come by here"?
I rather slide by the muddy streets,
go arround with the winds like the leaves,
and walk shoeless until my feet bleeds,
than to go by there....
If I came to this world,
was only to deflower the virgin forest,
and to dig my feet into the sand of the beach.
And everthing else I do means nothing.
Then, how are you going
to give me strength, tools and corage
so I can break my obstacles?
Runs in your veins the old blood of the elders
You love what is easy!
I love what is far and what is invisible
I love the abyss, the rivers and the desert...
Go! You have roads,
you have gardens, you have public works,
you have a nation, you have houses
you have rules and treats and philosophers and wise-men...
I have my craziness!
And I carry it up like a torch burning in the dark night,
and I feel salive and blood and songs in my lips...
God and the Devil are the ones who guide me, no one else!
Everybody had fathers, everybody had mothers.
but I, who never start and do not finish,
was born from the love between God and the Devil.
Ah, come nobody to give my pitty intentions,
nobody to ask me for definitions!
Nobody to say to me "come with us"!
My life is the wind that went wild,
Is the wave that got strong
Is just one more atom that awoke....
I don't know where to go to,
I don't know where I am supposed to go,
But I know I won't go with them.
