moacir amâncio

MOACIR AMÂNCIO

MAS A NOITE ANUNCIADA

mas a noite anunciada
aconteceu feito um susto
quando o pai traçou temente
sem jamais erguer o lápis
os ângulos circunflexos
da estrela de salomão
conter a linha não pode
até que o fim e o começo
se confirmem concluir

 

BUT THE ANNOUNCED NIGHT

but the announced night
happened suddenly
when the fearing father drew
never raising the pencil
the circumflex angles
of solomon’s star
he cannot hold the line
until beginning and end
confirm their conclusion

 

A NAU APORTARÁ

a nau aportará um dia neste cais
vazio sempre mas jamais de passageiros
todos à espera desse algum por tudo incerto
tanto a partida qual também toda chegada
seja amsterdã quem sabe hamburgo ou mesmo bósforo
ainda recife pode ser constantinopla
onde seremos por demais talvez em rhodes
faremos lá a nossa língua e outras folhagens
entanto até jerusalém porto será
para os jamais desencontrados mal seguros
como se o mar um ladrilhado logo fosse
mas com porém lugar aberto aos bambos pés
novos caminhos quando nunca sendo os mesmos
e os tantos olhos cegos a buscar navios

 

THE SHIP WILL DOCK

the ship will dock someday on this quay
always empty but never of passengers
all waiting for the always never sure
for every departure and every arrival
be it amsterdam, hamburg or bosphorus
yet recife can be constantinople
where we’ll be many maybe in rhodes
there we’ll make our tongue and other bushes
but even jerusalem shall be a harbor
for the one who’s never safe and never found
as if the sea were a mosaic soon to be
but yet with place for crippled feet to set
new ways that may never be the same
and the many blinded eyes seeking ships

 

NA IBÉRIA AS CHAMAS

de la estrella de Venus tan ajeno
Antonio Enriquez Gómez

na ibéria as chamas
cresciam das masmorras
com lenha local
e dos aquém mares
onde dispersava
se em relva sem nome

 

IN IBERIA THE FLAMES

de la estrella de Venus tan ajeno
Antonio Enriquez Gómez

in iberia the flames
rose from the dungeons
with native timber
and from far away seas
where they were scattered
in nameless grass

—translated by rodrigo bravo

Moacir Amâncio (1949) is a Brazilian poet, journalist, scholar and translator. Professor of Hebrew language and literature at the University of São Paulo, he is a member of the Brazilian Jewish community. Amancio paints, in his poetry, the long lost mosaic of Jewish identity and history in colonial and imperial Brazil, erased by the Inquisition. Matula (2016), the book which the selected poems came from, is the first poetic work in Brazil to explore and set the ways for composing authentic Jewish poetry in Portuguese language.