Okay, so I am totally on a blogging spree today, so bear with me. Due to a recent conversation with Autumn through goodreads.com, I was reminded of some beautiful Mozambican poetry that we studied last year. I wanted to share two poems with you that I fell in love with. Here's the first one by Gloria de Sant'Anna (keep in mind that this is the English translation done by Frederick G. Williams):
Poem for a Rainy Day
My home is a lighthouse in the middle of the night.
Come, whoever you may be
at first you'll be like the stem of a flower
dripping over the carpet
and we will watch you
as the color of the rain
but, immediately, almost immediately
you will feel in yours the warm palms
of our hands
and you will find in the design of our smiles
the translation of the hour.
This next one is one of the most amazing love poems that I have ever read. I will admit that I think it is even better in Portuguese, but I am posting the English translation so that you will also fall in love. Autumn and I both agree that we can't get over this poem. We got to meet, the author, Mia Couto, who is a writer and professor in Mozambique, and was at that time helping with plans to expand a Great Park (like Kruger) into Mozambique. Here it is:
For You
It was for you
that I unfolded the rain
for you I loosened the perfume of the earth
I touched upon the nothing
and for you it was everything
For you I created all the words
and all of them were lacking
the moment when I felled
the savor of forever
For you I gave voice
to my hands
I opened the buds of time
I assaulted the world
and I thought that everything was within us
in that sweet deception
of owning everything
not having anything
simply because it was nighttime
and we weren't sleeping
I descended into your bosom
in order to find myself
and before the darkness
would gird our loins
we remained in our eyes
living from one look only
loving from one life only
Sigh. Need I say more?
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