Onde as vozes luso-afro-brasileiras cruzam oceanos e recriam o mundo em verso.

Where Luso-Afro-Brazilian voices cross oceans and remake the world in verse.

Memória do pão

(para Olímpia do Carmo Almeida, minha mãe)

Ontem ia ao moinho com o trigo num alforge e o filho no outro a equilibrar a carga do burro.

Descia do moinho a pensar nas contas da maquia do moleiro com canções de feira na voz a perderem-se no vento fresco do lado do mar.

As peneiras brancas, as pás e o rodo esperavam na boca do forno a amassadura feita com paciência contra o grande alguidar vidrado.

Tudo tinha o seu tempo: o fogo, o calor, a lenta destruição das brasas, as vozes em redor da luz, a tarde a desfazer-se.

Por isso, um bocado de pão que por descuido caía da mesa ou das mãos, era apanhado e recebido com um beijo – o respeito à vida marcava nesse gesto repetido a ligação do ciclo do pão à vida de todos nós.

Símbolo da própria vida, o pão guardava-se em arcas ou em cestos pendurados no tecto – longe dos animais domésticos.

Hoje uma sua neta compra no supermercado vários pequenos pães. Parecem de plástico talvez devido ao celofane. Não sabem a nada. Nem ao trigo nem à água nem ao sal nem ao tempo que o próprio pão representava.

José do Carmo Francisco, poeta

Memory of Bread
(for Olímpia do Carmo Almeida, my mother)

Yesterday she went to the mill — wheat in one saddlebag,
and her child in the other, to balance the donkey’s load.
She came down from the mill thinking of the miller’s share,
fairground songs still on her lips, dissolving
in the cool wind from the sea.

The white sieves, the paddles, the scraper
waited by the oven’s mouth for the dough
kneaded with patience against the great glazed basin.

Everything had its own time: the fire, the heat,
the slow dying of the embers, voices around the light,
the afternoon unraveling.

So, when a crumb of bread by accident
fell from table or hand, it was picked up
and received with a kiss — respect for life marked,
in that repeated gesture, the bond
between the bread’s cycle and the life of us all.

Symbol of life itself, the bread was kept
in chests or baskets hanging from the ceiling —
safe from the household animals.

Today, one of her granddaughters
buys several small loaves at the supermarket.
They seem made of plastic — perhaps because of the cellophane.
They taste of nothing.
Not of wheat, nor of water, nor of salt,
nor of the time that bread itself once embodied.

Translated by Diniz Borges

Vision

To illuminate the poetic threads that bind Portugal, Africa, Brazil, and their diasporas into a shared fabric of memory, resilience, and creation. Through Filamentos, poetry becomes a vessel that carries ancestral voices across oceans, sustaining cultural identities while opening new horizons of belonging.

Mission

• To gather and celebrate poets of the Luso-Afro-Brazilian worlds, including their diasporas, offering a space where their voices can echo freely and be heard across borders.
• To translate and amplify this poetry so that the saudade of one shore becomes the recognition of another, fostering cultural exchange and solidarity.
• To affirm poetry as both archive and prophecy: a record of displacement, memory, and survival, and a vision of futures rooted in justice, freedom, and imagination.
• To connect readers and listeners across continents, ensuring that the literature of the Portuguese-speaking worlds continues to inspire, heal, and transform.

We thank the Luso-American Education Foundation for its support.

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