Forest near Mangaratiba — Johan Moritz Rugendas

88 years are gone

A normal day

Like others

Entradas without Flags

Disbanded,

To blaze this trail further.

Wishes and vows in yesterday

With fireworks and joys

Fleeting.

Hopes and dreams count

To feed the walk

Vain hopes and dreams

In the attic spaces of Fate.

Bandeirante without Flag

Go with a blunderbuss,

Trebuchet,

Machete

and

Scythe,

In the bag,

Hopes, and dreams

Ready to jump on

If a steed venture

Down into these woods.

Experienced Bandeirante

From the bamboo grove that lashes him

Cut a thin bamboo

Very straight;

The barbs he receives

Turns them into arrows

Which he covers

With the poisons he finds,

Take his blowgun.

Break branches;

From the best, sharpens the tip

If ammunition is short,

Better have a javelin

Since on native trails

Enough is

Kill a jaguar a day

Whether ammo or dexterity

Don’t miss it.

With confidence, not always

But always with friendly hands

Beats mighty rivers,

Refresh himself

Like waterfalls.

Jump here jump there,

Stumbling in roots.

Doesn’t even turnover:

Just get up.

Sweaty

Often unrestrained

Always have a hammock at hand

Where he has peace, dreams, rests

Lots of hammocks, so many hammocks,

Lovingly woven

By very dear hands

Never forgotten.

Lashed by canes

Tanned by heat and cold

Marked by the lashes

Dreams to open up another Entrada

With wrinkles and scars

Added

Proven evidence of life.

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Flavio Musa de Freitas Guimarães
Flavio Musa de Freitas Guimarães

Written by Flavio Musa de Freitas Guimarães

Already watching the eighty-eight turn of the Earth in curtsy around its King, I’m an engineer that became a writer, happy, in perfect health, body and mind.

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