Up Close And Personal

Decided to share a poem from my native country. It's my favourite and what I like to believe the anthem to my life - "Cantico Negro" by Jose Regio, I translated it in the best of my ability trying to capture its original sense, if anyone find a better translation, please let me know and I'll adjust it accordingly. Hope you enjoy!!!

Black Chant
by Jose Regio
(1901-1969)

“Come this way” – they say with tender eyes
Stretching out their arms to me, assured
That it would be good if I would listen
When they say – “come this way!”
I gaze them with indifferent eyes,
(There is, in my eyes, tires and ironies)
And I cross my arms,
And never go that way…
This is my glory:
Create inhumanity!
Not follow anyone.
- As I live with the same unwillingness
As when I tear my mother’s womb
No, I won’t go that way, I will only go
Where my own steps will lead me…
If to what I seek you have no response to
Why do you repeat: “come this way!”?

I prefer slipping in muddy alleys,
Whirling in the winds,
Like torn clothes, drag my bloody feet
Than going that way…
If I came to this world, was
Just to ravish virgin forests,
And draw my own feet in unexplored sand!
Anything else I do is worth nothing.

How can you be the ones
To give me impulses, tools and courage
To defeat my own obstacles?
In your veins, flows old blood of great grand parents
And you love what is easy!
I love the far away and the mirage,
I love the abyss, the torrents, the deserts…

Go! You have streets,
You have gardens, and flowerbeds,
You have nations, and ceilings,
You have rules, and treaties, and philosophers, and wise men…
I have my own madness!
I lift it up, like a burning torch, in the dark night,
And feel foam, and blood, and chants in my lips…
God and Devil guide me, no one else!
All of you had a father, all of you had a mother;
But I, that never begin nor end,
Was born of the love between God and Devil.

Ohh! Don’t give me sympathetic intentions,
Don’t ask me for definitions!
Don’t tell me: “come this way”!
My life is an unleashed hurricane,
It’s a wave that has just raised up
It’s an extra atom that ignited…
I don’t know which way I’ll go
I don’t know where I’ll go
I know I won’t go that way!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_R%C3%A9gio