Eugenio de Andrade - poems in English

Penniless Lovers


They had faces open to whoever passed.
They had legends and myths
and a chill in the heart.
They had gardens where the moon strolled
hand in hand with the water.
They had an angel of stone for a brother.

They had like everyone
the miracle of every day
dripping from the roofs;
and golden eyes
glowing with a wilderness of dreams.

They were hungry and thirsty like animals,
and there was silence
around their steps.
But at every gesture they made,
a bird was born from their fingers
and, dazzled, vanished into space.


Silence

When tenderness
seems tired at last of its offices

and sleep, that most uncertain vessel,
still delays,

when blue bursts from
your eyes

and searches
mine for steady seamanship,

then it is I speak to you of words
desolate, derelict,

transfixed by silence.


Alexis Levitin from original poems by
Eugénio de Andrade