BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS: Portuguese/ English

Trás-Os-Montes

faz um milhão de anos
parece
que deixei os vales
altos
trás os montes
altos
acima do mar
onde a lua amarêla pålida
faixas de vermelho escuro
sangra noite
e a chuva entristece dia
Há lugares nêste mundo
onde vai a natureza
a chorar a sua tristeza
lugares que seguem
o coração
onde quer que vai

TRAS-0S-MONTES
[ a harsh mountainous region in north-west Portugal]
I left the valleys
high
across the mountains
high
above the sea
where the pale yellow moon
with streaks of deep red
bleeds the night
and a cold rain
saddens the day.
There are places in this world
where Nature cries her sadness.
Places that follow your heart
wherever you go

FADO

fado portugal amalia - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFhazkJyj_0Apr 20, 2009 - 5 min - Uploaded by portugalmania1
un fado chanté en exclusivité par Amalia, pour Portugalmania. ... Je viens d'aller voir votre section sur ...

About This Poem

Last Few Words: Each language comes with set of "sensibilites"foreign to many other cultures,and largely not understood. I wrote the following "poem"in continental Portuguese, the language of the FADO [see below]. I found myself going in a direction I didn't intend. The language brought me there.No Brazilian would ever have written anything like this, nor would they have understood it.There is a '"streak'" in my own writing n English that comes from a similar place and often misunderstood as melodramatic.

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Country/Region: USA

Comments

hi

don't know any portuguese but liked the english version
re fado really fond of mariza's youtube 'Chuva' which is based on a famous portuguese poem, it has a similar feeling of loss that's in your poem.

As I mentioned ,the language

As I mentioned ,the language brings you to the tragic sense of life of he region. FADO [fate] has a strong Arababic feeling.

Thanks,

Joe

This seemed to leave an empty space in the heart as if there should have been a place of beauty.
I see that you mentioned FADO [fate] has a strong Arabic feeling, if I remember right the whole region has an Arabic influence going back to the time that the Moors as they were called had control of most of Spain and probably Portugal where the influence of the language would be retained ?????. I shall look up that period of time and see if that was the case.
Liked the write there young man, Yours Ian.T

PS:-
Landing near Algeciras in the spring of 711.
Islamic Moors (mainly Berbers with some Arabs) from North Africa invaded the Iberian Peninsula.
Destroying the Visigothic Kingdom.
Many of the ousted Gothic nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands.
From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors:
This war of reconquest is known in Portuguese(and Spanish) as the Reconquista.
In 868, Count Vímara Peres reconquered and governed the region between the rivers Minho and Douro. The county was then known as Portucale (i.e., Portugal).
So I expect some of the words used would date from that time..

I left the valleys

I left the valleys
 high across the mountains,
high above the sea
 where the pale yellow moon 
with streaks of deep red
 bleeds the nigh
t and a cold rain 
saddens the day. 

There are places in this world
 where Nature cries her sadness. 
Places that follow your heart wherever you go,
Fado.

Just like the Flamenco
these songs grip the emotions in a most poignant manner,
and with their gentle intensity, move us, as all sensitive music can.
As if Nature speaks on the winds of time telling us of its passage through our lives.

A magical melody that will haunt my day Longobardolino. Anni