Al Qabri Ramos

 

Mozambique

(dedicated to Luzídia Filimone)

From those black eyes of yours

When you speak of the earth,

they want to shed tears,

Restrained by shame

Of a conscience

Asleep;

That longing you have

on the chest

Cry out thy soul ...

Of this forgotten pain

By the following days

(In this shuffle of free time)

All that's left is your dream

to be able to return to the elected country

Who saw you born, 

Where you can trust the smile 

from your children to the regime;

And of your hope to return,

When, don't you know, 

To the land of the Sun, par excellence

Receive my sympathy

In a written embrace.

(written in 1989 and dedicated to a PhD student in Letters, with whom I worked, in the Portuguese-Mozambican Dictionary, published by Edições Asa)