Drizzle, Snow, and Poetry -- for Jo(e)

Note: I know I shouldn't be writing another post during the weekend, when people aren't reading much, so please don't forget to check my previous post -- it took me over a month to finish and post it!

I wrote a poem once, many years ago, about the drizzle (garoa) that falls in São Paulo, and which is (or used to be) considered one of the typical things of the city. I had just taken a class on the modern poets of Brazil and read the poetry of Mário de Andrade who mentions São Paulo's drizzle several times in his poems (he also often refers to the Italian immigrants of the city, hence the word I use there).

I’m not a good poet, but here’s the poem, in Portuguese with my own English translation below. The word drizzle is beautiful in Portuguese: garoa. I don’t like it very much in English (drizzle), though.

Note: the formatting is going to be lost for both poems. I really like to play with indentations and to put certain words centralized below the previous verse, but I just need to know a lot of HTML to do that... maybe I'll try to edit them later.

Porque a garoa é triste?
É porque parece que a natureza chora?
Branco, nublado, Ausência
– o nada –
Fala o vento soprando frio, melancólico.
Garoa
cai em silêncio
E este silêncio dá um desespero!!

Prefiro o barulho da chuva.
Ele parece vivo, vibrante, até alegre.
A garoa nem geme. É quieta, sorrateira.
Como aquelas grandes tristezas, melancolias,
que nos enchem o coração de vez em quando...
que vem assim também. Silentes, caladas
(e calam lá no fundo...)

Através da garoa vê-se o mundo embaçado,
miopemente desfocado.

"– Garoa, sai dos meus olhos." - diz o Mário.

Sai dos meus olhos
Sai do meu coração

Parla!

Porque o teu silêncio me sufoca.

05.11.92 9:30 a.m.
(é ruim mas é algo)

English:

Why is the drizzle sad?
Is it because it seems that nature weeps?
White, cloudiness, Absence
– nothing –
Says the wind blowing cold, melancholic.
Drizzle
falls silently
And this silence brings me such despair!!

I prefer the noise of the rain.
It seems alive, vibrant, even joyful.
The drizzle doen’t even moan. It’s quiet, surreptitious.
Like those feelings of sadness, and melancholy that fill our hearts once in a while…
that also come like that. Silent, peaceful
(and pierce us deeply…)

Through the drizzle one sees the foggy world,
Near-sightedly out of focus.

“Drizzle, get out of my eyes.” – says Mário.

Get out of my eyes
Get out of my heart

Parla!

Because your silence suffocates me.

May 11, 1992, 9:30 am
(it’s bad but it’s something)

I thought of this poem written almost fifteen years ago now because I think it applies well to the snow that’s falling out there. The word "drizzle" can be easily substituted for "snow," so the poem can also be read as if it were about snow.

Once I wrote in a comment in Jo(e)’s blog that one of the things that bothered me about the snow was the eerie silence that came with it and she liked that idea. She said that maybe that’s one of the things that depressed her so in the month of February. This month is almost over, but I wanted to share this with her (and you).

I also wish I could write haikus like my friend Cloudscome, but they’re so hard to write for someone as prolix as myself. Right now, all I can write is this:

Snow is falling fast
As I type my dissertation
I look out the window from the corner of my eye
Wishing the words could come to me as fast as the snowflakes.
All that comes is some poetry, not academic prose.
It feels good to write again, though
It has been many years since I’ve felt the words
Like snowflakes, light and pure
Falling silently and covering me with a blanket.
Only black, not white.
Black words on white paper
Black words on the blank computer screen.

Words
Falling
Finally

I think there’s hope for me.
If only I can still write.