Vicente, by Miguel Torga - Part I

[Unpublished translation by Luciana Lhullier]

That afternoon, the time the sky showed itself harder and more sinister, Vicente spread his black wings and left. Forty days had already elapsed since, integrated to the group of the chosen ones, he had given entrance in the Ark. But from the first moment everyone saw there was no peace in his spirit. Quiet and frowning, he walked to and fro in continuous agitation, as if that great ship where the Lord had kept life was an outrage to creation itself. In similar disorder - wolves and lambs together in the same fate -, just his black and dry figure kept bitter about God´s procedure. In a silent indignation he asked: - to what purpose were the animals involved in the confusing issue of Babel? What did they have to do with men's fornications, that the Creator wanted to punish? Fair or unfair, the high purposes that determined that flood clashed against a deep feeling of irrepressible repulse. And, the more inexorable prepotency was presented, the more Vicente's revolt increased.

Forty days, however, his weak flesh kept him there. Not even he could explain how they had left Lebanon to the boarding wharf and then, in the Ark, for so long he had received from Noah's servile hands his everyday feed. But he had been able to win. He had, finally, overcome the instinct of self-preservation, and had opened his wings towards the terrible immensity of the sea.

The unusual departure was witnessed by big and small in a quiet and reserved respect . Amazed and dazzled, they saw him, reckless, with an open chest, cross the first fire wall with what God had wanted to prevent him from escaping, and disappear in the distance in the boundaries of space. But nobody said anything. His gesture was, at that moment , the symbol of universal liberation. The conscience, in active protest against the will that divided the beings between the chosen ones and the doomed.

Still, in spite of everyone´s savoring that rescue flavor, and already high, releasead as a thunder, penetrating as a ray, terrible, the voice of God:

- Noah, where is my servant Vicente?

Bipeds and quadrupeds were petrified. On the deck, swept of illusions, a heavy, a silent shroud went down.

(To be continued)

Aldo, Luciana, and the Cathedral

Italian painter Aldo Locatelli left Italy in 1948, invited by Dom Antônio Zattera, bishop of Pelotas, in Southern Brazil, to paint the frescos of the São Francisco de Paula Cathedral. The result is what you see in the photos. I love the place where I was baptized, but more than it representing my belonging in any sort of religion - I don´t worship, I live - it is a place of calm and tranquility, where I sometimes like to be, when I go back to "the initial shores of my life", as in Sophia Andresen´s poem.

This is the Brazilian map where I circled (ok, it´s not a circle) Pelotas: 

Pictures from the interior of the Cathedral:

 

 

 

Poem of the Child

For the divine child who lives inside each one of us. May he/she always tell us stories. Merry Christmas!

Poema do Menino Jesus (Fernando Pessoa)

At noon, on a Spring day I had a dream, just like a photograph:
I saw Jesus Christ descend to Earth .
He ran down a hill, but He was a boy again running and rolling in the grass
Picking flowers and laughing so hard, that you could hear Him far away.
He had escaped Heaven.
He was ours, so much ours, to pretend to be the Second Person of the Trinity.
One day that God was sleeping and the Holy Ghost was flying around, He went to the box of miracles, And stole three of them:
With the first He made no one notice He had escaped; with the second He created Himself eternally human and child; and with the third He created a Christ eternally in the cross and left him nailed in the cross to serve as a model to the other ones .
Then He fled to the Sun and came down on the first sunbeam He was able to catch. Nowadays He lives in my village, with me.
He´s a beautiful child, with a natural smile.
He wipes His nose with His right arm, jumps in the puddles, picks flowers- He likes them- forgets things. throws stones, picks fruit in the orchards and runs away from the dogs.
Just because He knows they don´t like it, and everybody laughs at that, He runs after the girls who carry jugs on their head and pulls up their skirts.

To me, He taught me everything.
He taught me how to look at things.
He shows me all the colors there are in the flowers and shows me how pebbles can be funny when we have them in our hands and carefully look at them.
We get along so well, with everything, that we never think about each other.
We live, both of us, in a close agreement, like the right hand and the left hand.
When it starts to grow dark, we play the five little rocks on my doorstep. Very seriously, as it suits to a GOD and a poet. As if each little rock were the whole Universe and it would be very dangerous to let it fall.
Then I tell Him stories about humankind. And He smiles, because they are all incredible. He laughs at the kings and at the ones who are not kings. And He´s sorry to hear about the wars and the greed.
After that He falls asleep and I carry Him in my arms to my home, I lay Him in my bed, in a ritual, all human and all motherly.
He sleeps inside my soul.
Sometimes He wakes up in the middle of the night, plays with my dreams. Turns some of them upside down, piles them up, and claps, alone, smiling at my dreams.

When I die, Little Son, I´ll be the child, the littlest one. You´ll carry me in Your arms, take me to Your home. lay me down in Your bed, to sleep. Undress my being, tired and human. Tell me stories in case I wake up, so that I go back to sleep, and give me Your dreams – to play.