Canzone Della Bambina Portoghese

And then, and then, people come here and tell you they already know every law of things.
And everyone, you know, boasts a blind pride in truths made of empty formulas...
And everyone, you know, can tell you how to do it,
which laws to follow, which rules to observe, what the real truth is...
And then, and then, everyone locked in their own cells shouts to see who can talk the loudest
so they don’t have to admit that stars and death are scary...

In the warmth of the sun, the Portuguese girl went down to the sea,
there were no words, just sounds like surprised voices,
the sea alone and her first maroon bikini,
the most beautiful things and the joy of the warmth on her skin...

The friends nearby seemed submerged by the voice of the sea...
Oh dreams or visions, something took hold of her and made her think,
she felt it was a point at the edge of a continent,
she felt it was nothing, the immense Atlantic in front...

And in this, she felt something great
that she couldn’t understand, that she couldn’t grasp,

that would have explained, if she had understood, that infinite ocean...
But the heat wrapped around her, she felt herself fade and fell asleep
and it was just the sun, like future hands;
only the sea and a maroon bikini remained...

And then, and then, if you find yourself remembering, you’ll realize you don’t care at all
and you’ll understand that an evening or a season is like flashes, lights turned on and then off
and you’ll understand that the real ambiguity
is the life we live, the something we call being human...
And then, and then, that the vice that will kill you won’t be smoking or drinking,
but the something you carry inside,
that is living, living and then, then living
and then, then living...