Through the Cátedra Natália Correia at California State University Fresno, at PBBI (Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute), we will be commemorating with many events, publications, and research. Starting this week and until September 2024, we will publish excerpts in English translation from the writings of Natália Correia. This will be done as a way to get the academic community, students, and faculty, as well as the community at large to be familiar with the works of Natálaia Correia, who was a leading poet, feminist, and cultural icon of Portugal and Western Europe throughout the latter part of the 20th century.

This week, we will feature one of her powerful poems appropriate for our time and the many challenges the world faces.

Ode to Peace

For truth, for laughter, for light, for beauty,

For the birds that fly in a child’s eye,

For the cleanliness of the wind, for acts of purity,

For joy, for wine, for music, for dance,

For the soft melody of the rushing streams,

For the glow of summer, for the blue of the clear day,

For the flowers that enamel the fields, by the quiet of the pastures,

For the accuracy of the roses, for Wisdom,

For the pearls that drip from the eyes of lovers,

For the wonders that are true in dreams,

For love, for freedom, for radiant things,

For the ripe scents of soft autumns,

For the future morning of those awesomely transparent,

For the maternal and productive bowels of the earth,

For the tears of mothers whose bloody clouds

Raise their children for the wickedness of war,

I summon you, oh peace, I invoke you, oh merciful one,

Oh Holy One, Oh Talisman against the fierce industry.

With your hands that bring down the flags of wrath,

With your scorch from the bomb and the tormentor,

Open the gates of History,

                               let Life go by!

Natália Correia, translated to English by Diniz Borges