Aos Namorados do Brasil

Give me, Lord, technical assistance
So I can speak to the lovers of Brazil
Does any lover listen to anyone?
Is it worth speaking to lovers?
And do I have things to tell them
That they don't know, they who turn
universal wisdom into divine forgetfulness?
Does it help them, Lord, to know anything,
when they lose their eyes
to every landscape,
lose their ears
to every melody
and only see, only hear
melody and landscape of their own making?

Blind, deaf, mute - happy! - are the lovers
while lovers. Before, after
they are people like us, in everyday life.
But whoever was a lover knows that once again
they will return to the sublime invalidity
that is a sign of inner perfection.
Lover is the being out of time,
out of obligation and social security number,
taxes, social security, pension fund.

The codes, disarmed, retreat
from his door, fines are ashamed
to target him, wars, treaties
international shrink back
before him, around him. Time,
sharpening its scythe without pause,
waits for the lover to unlove
forever.
But new lovers are born every day,
renewed, innovative,
and no one wins or loses this battle.

For loving is the destiny of humans,
destiny that regulates
our pain, our donation, our joyous hell.
And whoever lives, pay attention:
fulfill your duty to love,
or else live only in appearance.
To be your wandering corpse.
Not to be. To be, and not be.

The problem, Lord, is how to learn, how to practice
the art of loving, which no audiovisual teaches,
and goes beyond all university.
Who learned does not teach. Who teaches does not know.
And the lover only learns, without feeling that he learned,
by the work and grace of his girlfriend.

The woman before and after the Bible
is therefore a natural encyclopedia
infused science, unconscious, immune to tests,
shining in the simple manifesting, when the time comes.
We must learn from women
the finest nuances of courtship.
The man is born ignorant, lives ignorant, sometimes dies
three times ignorant of his heart
and how to use it.

Only the woman (how to explain?)
understands certain things
that are not meant to be understood. They are to be aspired
to as essence, or not even so. They aspire
to the secret of the world.

There are men who quickly tire of courtship,
others who are unfaithful to their girlfriend.
Poor those who did not learn properly,
woe to those who will never be mature enough to learn,
sad for those who did not deserve, do not deserve to court.

For courting is not just about bringing together two attractions
in the old style or the modern style,
with shivers, murmurs, silences,
walks, dinners, recordings,
weekends, speeding in the car or at 80,
boat, pool, Valentine's Day,
colored photo, crazy movie,
quick motel where the mirrors
do not keep the kiss and soul of anyone.

Courting is the absolute sense
that hides in the very simple gesture,
unintentional, never foreseen,
and gives the gesture the color of dawn,
to keep lasting, enduring,
sound of crystal in the shell
or in the infinite.

Courting is beyond the kiss and syntax,
does not depend on state or condition.
To be duplicated, to be complex,
that looks at itself and unfolds,
the boyfriend, the girlfriend
are not those same creatures
we cross on the street.
They are others, they are very remote stars,
outside any system or situation.
Earthly limitation, which pursues them,
attempts to charge (envy)
the terrible passage tax:
"Hurry up! Run! It will end! It will fade!
Everything will corrupt into crushed flower
under the soles of shoes..."
Or else:
"Give up! Run away! Forget!"
And the weak forget. The timid give up.
The cowards run away.
What does it matter? Every hour new lovers are born
for the novelty
of the old experience.
And they inaugurate each morning
(courtamor)
the old, old world renewed.