William Edouard Scott, Rainy Night at Etaples, 1912

Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s poem “Morning Street” appeared in our Fall 1986 issue. He is considered by some to be the greatest Portuguese-language poet of all time.

The splashing rain
unearthed my father.
I never imagined
him buried thus,
to the din of trolleys
on an asphalt street
giant palm trees slanting on the beach
(and a voice from sleep
to stroke my hair),
as melodies wash up
with lost money
discarded confessions
old papers, glasses, pearls.

To see him exposed
to the damp, acrid air,
that drifts in with the tide
and cuts your breath,
to wish to love him
without deceit
to cover him with kisses, with flowers, with swallows,
to alter time
to offer the warm
of a quiet embrace
from this elderly recluse,
discarded confessions
and a lamb-like truce.

To feel the lack
of inborn strengths
to want to carry him
to the older sofa
of a bygone ranch,
but splashes of rain
but sheets of mud beneath reddish street lamps
but all that exists
of morning and wind
between one nature and another
yawning sheds by the docks
discarded confessions
ingratitude.
What should a man do
at dawn
(a taste of defeat
in his mouth, in the air)
in whatever place?
Everything spoken, drunk, or even pretended
and the rest still buried
in the folds of sleep,
cigarette stubs
the wet glare of streets
discarded confessions
morning defeat.

Vague mountains
greening waves
newspapers already white,
hesitant melody
trying to spawn
conditions for hope
on this gray day, of a broken lament.
Nothing left to remind me
of the seamless asphalt.
Abandoned cellars
my body shivers
discarded confessions:
abruptly, the walk home.

—Translated from the Portuguese by Thomas Colchie