Just
By José Craveirinha
Translated from the Portuguese by Arthur Brakel
Love,
Not so much
Please
Now and again
take me in your arms
and wrap me in the brown and yellow caress of your desire
Now and again
so that I can forget
until morning when they come to get us
and we don’t know if we’ll be back
and if we’re man or thing
and if we can know the nature of true laughter
and if this be true or false
Call the Children
and the house
and the woman with the frightened eyes
without the waking appearance of remorse
Love,
not so much
please
Just now and again
take me in your crossed arms
and wrap me in the brown and yellow caress of your love
and in the peaceful certainty of your affection
Now and again
Just now and again
take me in your arms
my love
José Craveirinha was
a journalist in Mozambique, East Africa, who became the foremost lyric poet of
his nation. His early poems inspired African pride and protest during the long
(and successful) struggle for independence from Portugal.
The child of a Portuguese father and a black mother of the
Ronga ethnicity, Craveirinha was raised in the language and culture of
Portugal. His poems, written in Portuguese, address such issues as racism and
the Portuguese colonial domination of Mozambique. He was one of the African
pioneers of the Négritude movement.
As a journalist, Craveirinha contributed to numerous
Mozambican magazines . He also played football and coached other athletes. He
arranged an athletic scholarship in the United States for Maria de Lurdes
Mutola, who won a gold medal in track and field at the Olympics in 2000, and
his son Stelio also held the national long jump record.
Craveirinha was awarded the Prémio Camões, the world's
highest honour for lusophone literature, in 1991. He was considered several
times for the Nobel Prize for Literature.In 2003, Craveirinha was declared a
"national hero" by President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, who
praised Craveirinha's literary contribution to the fight against colonialism.
What makes Craveirinha a great poet and person are human
sympathy, unpretentiousness, a passionate sense of justice, attachment to his
land and people, uninhibited lyrical eroticism, a powerful command of words,
the directness and concentrated vigor of his verses, an extraordinary
combination of reality and dream-like imagery, and a profound seriousness
alternating with subtle irony. In 1979, during a private conversation, when the
talk turned to the struggle for a better Mozambican society out of love for humanity,
the poet wondered why there was so much hate and so little generosity even
after the victory had been won. He concluded: "It is easier for man to be
heroic than to be humble.”
Source : Bending the Bow: An Anthology of African Love
Poetry by Frank M Chipasula (Editor)
