Desaparecimento de Luisa

It is requested that anyone who knows
the whereabouts of Luísa Porto
inform her residence
At Rua Santos Óleos, 48.
Urgent warning
lonely sick mother
bedridden for many years
bereft of her care.

It is requested that anyone who spots
Luísa Porto, 37 years old,
to appear, to write,
to send word
where she is.
A plea to the amateur reporter,
the shop assistant, the mosquito killer, the passerby,
anyone from the people and the middle class,
even the wealthy gentlemen,
to have pity on the distressed mother
and return her vanished daughter
even if just provide information.
She is tall, slim,
dark-skinned, fuzzy face, white teeth,
birthmark near the left eye,
slightly cross-eyed.
Simple dress. Glasses.
Missing for three months.
Bedridden mother calling.

It is begged of the charitable people of this city
to consider a family case
worthy of special sympathy.
Luísa is of good nature, correct, sweet, hardworking, religious.
She went shopping at the market square.
She did not return.

She had little money in her purse.
(Look for Luísa.)
She usually didn't take long.
(Look for Luísa.)
She had no boyfriend.
(Look for. Look for.)
She is sorely missed.

If, however, they do not find her
still do not stop looking
with persistence and confidence that God always rewards
and perhaps they will find her.
Mother, poor widow, does not lose hope.
Luísa rarely went to the city
and here in the neighborhood is where she can be best searched.
Her best friend, after the bedridden mother,
is Rita Santana, a seamstress, an unattached young woman.
who gives no news,
merely responding: I don't know.
Which is quite strange.

So many people disappear annually
in a city like Rio de Janeiro
that perhaps Luísa Porto will never be found.
Once, in 1898,
or 9,
the chief of police himself disappeared
who had gone out in the afternoon for a stroll in Largo do Rocio
and to this day.
Luísa's mother, then young, read in Diário Mercantil,
was astonished.
The newspaper wrapped in memory.
Little did she know that short marriage, widowhood,
poverty, paralysis, lament
would be her lot in life
and that her only daughter, affable albeit cross-eyed,
would vanish without explanation.

For the last time and in the name of God
almighty and full of mercy
look for the girl, look for
this one called Luísa Porto
and without a boyfriend.
Forget political struggles,
set aside commercial concerns,
spend a little time inquiring,
investigating, digging.
You will not regret it. There is no greater reward
than the smile
of a mother at a celebration
and the inner peace
resulting from good and selfless actions,
pure dew of the soul.

Do not come to tell me that Luísa committed suicide.
The holy flame of faith
always burned in her soul
belongs to God and to Teresinha do Menino Jesus.
She did not kill herself.
Look for her.
Nor was she a victim of a disaster unknown to the police
and unreported by the newspapers.
She is alive to console a bedridden woman
and the general triumph of maternal
and filial love.

No insinuations about the chaste girl
who had no, had no boyfriend.
Something extraordinary must have happened,
earthquake, arrival of a king.
The streets changed direction,
why it takes so long, it is night.
But she will return, spontaneously
or brought by a benevolent hand,
the gaze averted and tender, a song.

At any time of day or night
whoever finds her inform Rua Santos Óleos.
She has no phone.
There is an old maid who takes the message
and will take action.

But
if you think the fate of peoples is more important
and that we should not focus on individual pains,
if you close your ears to this bell appeal,
no matter, insult Luísa's mother,
turn the page:
God will have compassion on the abandoned and the absent,
will raise the sick woman, and the paralyzed limbs
will untie in the form of search.
God will say to her:
Go,
look for your daughter, kiss her and close her forever in your heart.

Or perhaps this divine favor is not necessary.
Luísa's mother (we are sinners)
knows herself unworthy of such grace.
And the wait remains, which is always a gift.
Yes, the lost ones return one day
- or never, or it may be, or yesterday.
And by thinking we achieve.
She just wants her little daughter
who on a remote afternoon in Cachoeiro
was born and smells of milk,
colic, tears.
The description of the body no longer matters
nor this, forgive, photograph,
disguises of a more intense reality
that no advertisement will provide.
Stop searching, radios, be silent.
Calm of flowers opening
in the blue flowerbed
where breasts bloom and a form of virgin
intact in time.
And by feeling we understand.
It is no longer worth looking
for my dear daughter Luísa
who while I wander through the ashes of the world
with useless feet fixed, while I suffer
and suffering I let go and recompose myself
and live again and walk,
is inert
engraved in the center of the invisible star
Love.