Lembrai-vos da guerra

A vast formation of white crosses,
A funeral parade of ghosts,
An exotic market of miasmas,
An exhibition of bones and heather…

Silent and mute falls the cannon,
Only darkness covers the expanse,
That once was a battlefield…
Silent and mute falls the machine gun,
The voice of the shell is choked,
The treacherous saber doesn’t shine,
Tearing apart, bloodied the land…
Peace has returned, the war is over.

The heroes have fallen from the heights,
The cowards and the brave forgotten,
Their deeds relegated to books,
Nothing remains, just graves.

And me? Who am I? They ask who I am?
Well, I’ll tell you: I’m a soldier,
Just like any other
Who marched on, fought, and was brought down.

Crosses alike… Terribly alike…
An army that grows more and more,
In the devilish feast of death.
Here lies the coward. There the strong.
Here sleeps a stranger. There I am…
But no one knows how he died…
They don’t remember the battlefield,
Never heard the laughter of the gunfire…
Didn’t feel their whole body tremble
Before the brutal roar of a mortar…
Didn’t see the color of the enemy’s eyes.
Didn’t feel the fear of danger,
That makes you wish for a quick death.
Never dreamed. Never, not even slightly.

But…

Not everyone forgot the soldier
Who is far away, buried far away…

Mom, my dear mother, if you knew
That I adorned your image with flowers,
That your flowers were my prayers,
Prayers gathered from the garden of pain…

My dear mother, if I told you
The fear I felt without your affection,
A horrible fear of dying alone.
Fear so strong it could kill me…
But I left my shelter and moved on
Thinking I’d see death with every step
Hearing the whistling of a shrapnel…
I stopped… Thought of you… Kept going…

My dear mother, if I told you
That when a grenade took me down
Throwing me into the muddy ground,
It was for you I called out in despair.
For a moment I stopped being a soldier
And became a child again
Feeling in death the hope
Of still falling asleep in your lap.
Mom. A shard killed me…

My dear fiancée, why do you cry?
You surely remember the good times
We spent together. Just us two…
We were going to marry. Remember? And then…
And then a little house away.
Curtains on the windows decorated,
You waiting for me… me coming from the barracks…
Our house a little heaven,
Open to the arrival of an heir…

My dream, my final dream,
Was to kiss you before I died.
But at the cold blow of the grenade,
I only kissed the bloodied ground.

Mom, my fiancée, here ends
A story of blood, this is war.
Don’t cry. It’s all over
Quick as a soldier’s business…

But mom…

If once again poor humanity
Once more in search of truth
Beats its drums upon the Earth
Announcing more blood and another war,
If another son the Motherland demands of you,
Without tears mom, let him go…
Even if it breaks your heart,
Even if it shatters your agony
Do me a favor mom,
Ask this brother,
To also be in the INFANTRY!