MAURO MOTA
(1912-1984)
MAURO Ramos da MOTA e Albuquerque, poet and professor of geography, born in Recife, was for many years the editor of Diário de Pernambuco.
 

O GALO

É a noite negra e é o galo rubro,

da madrugada o industrial.

É a noite negra sobre o mundo

e o galo rubro no quintal.

A noite desce, o galo sobe,

plumas de fogo e de metal,

desfecha golpe sobre golpe

na treva indimensional.

Afia os esporões e o bico,

canta o seu canto auroreal.

O galo inflama-se e fabrica

a madrugada no quintal.

THE COCK

          Translated by Mark Strand

It is the black night, the crimson cock,

it is the industrial dawn.

It is the black night over the world,

the crimson cock behind the house.

The night descends, the cock arises,

plumes of fire and metal

burst forth one after the other

in the immeasurable dark.

The cock sharpens his spurs and beak

and sings his auroral song.

The cock ignites himself and brings about

the dawn behind the house.

AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN BRAZILIAN POETRY. Verse translations by Leonard S. Downes.  [São Paulo]: Clube de Poesia do Brasil, 1954.  84 p.   14x20 cm.  “ Leonard S. Downes “ Ex. Biblioteca Nacional de Brasília.

MEMORY

Your memory comes to-night
journeying down long roads of space
traced by the music of distance.
I feel my soul wide open, pure, white, horizontal,
swift and soft
as the sky´s blue on the ecstatic face if waters,
as the shadow of a child in an orphanage garden,
as a moon-beam through a skylight falls o a sick girl´s pale face.