Echoes of a Lisbon dream
Translated from Portuguese. Read the original →
Paulo Muhongo · Poem
I dream of a peace —
silent and immense —
Even when the mad clock of the world
spits out rusted gears.
The morning stretches out,
The Lisbon sky unrolls like blue silk.
I sit down, quiet,
in the forgotten garden of the Tile Museum.
Between my fingers: a bowl of fruit,
its colours running in the light.
A suspended awning covers the sky —
but there are gaps,
and the golden arrows of the sun pass through me
like silent hymns.
Scents speak to me better than sounds.
The souls of passers-by brush against me,
and I float,
in a sweet reverie, awake, unreal.
I close my eyes.
Scents speak to me better than sounds.
The souls of passers-by brush against me,
and I float,
in a sweet reverie, awake, unreal.
The wind murmurs —
and a thousand tongues glide through the air,
strange, liquid,
like rivers I cannot name.
Far off: the shouts of children,
from the nearby schools,
their laughter ringing in a language
I recognise without understanding.
Portuguese?
Perhaps —
But the words have the freshness of springs,
the insolence of childhood,
and my logical mind drowns in them.
I am there, lost among voices,
the scent of flowers,
and the sour sweetness of the fruit
of which I barely tasted a few spoonfuls.
Suddenly —
The real bursts in!
The hammers of the building site pound the silence.
Lisbon, old wrinkled lover,
grows young again in the hands of tourism.
I open my eyes — and I see her.
A woman —
Or perhaps an angel,
come down from the alleys of the sky.
White dress, sandals of shadow and pale leather,
She walks,
and her voice dances with her steps.
She is harmony.
Her gait is that of the Palanca Negra,
the sacred beast of my lands.
Her gaze touches me
— and passes through me —
with an unknown tenderness.
She knows.
She knows I am dreaming her.
She smiles.
And my heart, breathless,
questions the void:
Am I still here?
Or is it what I see that goes on dreaming?
