Seated on the Island

Seated on the island
one learns the earth by contact—
not by naming
but by entering.

The hands pass into
the interstitial weave,
where soil is not yet soil
and body is not yet body.
Touch tears the surface of water,
seeking the root-system
of texture,
the cellular grain
through which this body
slowly agrees to become land
inside the fingers.

It is as if night itself
were seated on the island,
its outlines wounding the dark,
and the gaze of my people—
distant, enduring—
rests there,
not looking,
but sensing.

What ripening voice
presses against the fruit of this ground?
What hand of water
lifts silence to the mouth
and carries it
into the island’s night—
my people—
as breath,
as remainder?

What arable hand
knows the soil
when raised a palm above it,
feeling its pull
before contact,
when the body finally finds
a place to stand
where earth holds it,
and the island
is no longer landscape
but orientation,
not possession
but presence.

Reinterpreted in English by Diniz Borges

From the poem Sentado na Ilha, book of poetry Navegação da Terra por João de melo.