things the first dog on the street can tell you

under the savanna sun

the same sun

scorches this September morning, withering surfaces both alive and dead

they say it hasn’t rained here in over five months

with the humidity below 10%, with the grass so dry, nearly straw, i wait on this lawn for someone i haven’t seen in years

under this sun

i rush through the daily motions, dehydrated, or i lift the car hood to put more water in the radiator, or i wait for the green light to carry on with my life
but it’s no use

now i speak like it comes from nowhere

music, language, color, skin, the terra roxa inside my lungs, even the path my legs might one day walk through this city

the turn things take in a distant square or street

but the sun remains the same, an indifferent star burning its endless orbit

the same sun drenches the nomad crossing the Mojave desert, or rots the leg of a writer delivered to death at the border of Tanzania with Kenya

in Botafogo, on the balcony to the left of Maracanã’s radio booths, in rays, sweltering within a Bangu 2 prison cell

in the smoking carburetor, in the chlorophyll which sustains this yellow ipê tree, or in the vitamin D that strengthens my femoral lap

so i can walk or just stand, waiting

the same sun squandered on the peak of a single mountain (glimpsed from here through a postcard)

it would be better to find a bar and order a glass of water
before succumbing to the drought

that fries my hair, cracks my knees, and dulls a wait

before watching fiery vortexes cross the central highlands on the nightly news, and the other modes of solar presence

in bricks, in asbestos tiles, in empty water tanks, in the tie knot loosened during a sweaty coffee in the central market, in the pequi pit spat out beside the washed, green cajamangas ready to be eaten with salt, in the faint reflection of a shy lake in dirty water, last refuge for unlikely gray swans

it’s the same at night, in the hum of the fan blowing hot air around the room

to learn with the sun and not nurse false hopes

no one will emerge from memory to account for lost hours

they were all burned, forgotten, broken, dismembered

some may be dead, but i wasn’t invited to a single burial

those that live solemnly disregard all the squares and streets that lead to this moment

they don’t care, they don’t budge, they don’t tire

grabbing a fistful of dry brush mixed with dust and ants, smelling or even eating it, doesn’t mean growing closer to the land or to the people

in distant orbit, light-years of heat strike those bones

Written by Caio Meira
Translated from the Portuguese by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren

http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/portuguese/poetry-by-caio-meira