When Azorean poetry speaks again, in another tongue
Struggle
The night sleeps leaning against the hills.
Like a dream of peace and forgetfulness
The moon rises. The wind fell asleep,
Valleys and pastures fell asleep…
But for me, full of divine attractions,
The night defies my thought process.
I feel all around me, a foggy uproar,
Destinations and the Souls of Pilgrims!
Unfathomable problem…appalled
The thought reverts!…disheartened
Fatigued to the point of stupidity,
I stare unconsciously at the visionary shadows,
While on lonely beaches
Echoes, oh sea, your ancient voice.
Antero de Quental
Translated by Diniz Borges
Across the wide Atlantic, the sea carries more than tides — it carries the whispered dreams of islands. The Second Voice of the Sea gathers the poetry of the Azores and releases it anew in English, so each verse may breathe again in another tongue. Through the alchemy of translation, this Filamentos project from Bruma Publications at the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute, Fresno State, preserves the winds, the salt, and the saudade of the archipelago, offering them to readers far from its shores. Here, the ocean becomes a page, and the page, an endless sea.
This project is sponsored by the Luso-American Education Foundation.
You can find this and hundreds of other poems by Azorean poets in the Anthology Into the Azorean Sea. You can order it through Bruma Publications-Fresno State. The information is below:
Filamentos (artes e letras) 