Ausência

The song "Ausência" (Absence) by Vinicius de Moraes, a renowned Brazilian poet and lyricist, delves into the deep and complex emotions associated with love, loss, and longing. The lyrics express a bittersweet resignation to an unattainable love, where the speaker resolves to let the desire to love the other's sweet eyes die within them. This is not due to a lack of love, but rather an acknowledgment of the impossibility of giving anything but sorrow due to their own exhaustion and perhaps unworthiness.

The presence of the loved one is described as a source of light and life, suggesting that their essence is deeply intertwined with the speaker's own existence. The speaker does not wish to possess the loved one in a traditional sense, as that would signify an end to their being. Instead, they desire the loved one to emerge within them like faith does for the hopeless, allowing them to carry a drop of dew in a cursed land—a metaphor for finding solace and beauty amidst despair and the stains of the past.

In a poignant twist, the speaker imagines the loved one moving on, touching another's face, intertwining fingers with another, and blossoming into a new dawn. Yet, the loved one will remain unaware that it was the speaker who truly understood and cherished them. The speaker becomes one with the night, the mist, and the essence of the loved one's chaotic abandonment. Left alone like silent ships in ports, the speaker claims a profound connection with the loved one, as every lament of the sea, wind, sky, birds, and stars will carry the voice of the loved one—present, absent, and calmed.