A dança dos cumes
Através das montanhas, há uma flor.
Amarela, delicada, jovem.
Mas resiliente.
Bem longe ela fica,
Fora do meu alcance.
Mas sempre perto.
Batida pela neve e o frio,
Ela permanece forte.
E me fortalece.
Eu espero a minha flor,
Ansioso para vê-la.
O amor que temos ainda nasce,
Sem certeza prosseguimos.
Ambos nervosos,
Mas um fogo brilha entre nós.
Se der errado? E se der certo?
Não sabemos o futuro.
Mas corremos o risco.
Creio eu que não é acidente
Que a achei nas montanhas.
Mas para que fim? Não sei.
A minha flor eu guardo perto.
Não sabemos bem os passos,
Mas dançamos.
Através das montanhas.
-DAVID SHEPHERD
I wrote this poem for a Portuguese class I had in college in 2016. My inspiration for it was a girl I dated that year who was attending another college about three hours away across the mountains. Writing a poem in Portuguese was very difficult, since a lot of poetry is about choosing the right words, and doing so in a second language is even more difficult. My vocabulary and familiarity are more limited. In writing this, I gained a greater appreciation for how poetic a language English actually is. For the title, I have to stop myself from “correcting” it to capitalize each word, because in Portuguese you don’t you just capitalize the first letter. Or at least that’s what I was told in my class. An English translation is included below, which I also wrote as part of the same assignment.
The Dance of the Mountains
Across the mountain peaks there is a flower.
Young, yellow, delicate,
But resilient.
Far away she stays
Out of arm’s reach.
But close.
Battered by the snow and cold,
She remains forever strong.
And strengthens me.
I await my little flower,
Anxious always to see her.
The love between us still is dawning
Uncertain we proceed.
Both nervous
But a fire glows within us.
If it goes wrong? And if it goes right?
We do not know the future.
But we run the risk.
I do not believe it was an accident
That I found her in the mountains.
But to what end? I do not know.
I keep my flower close to me.
We do not know the steps,
But we dance.
Across the mountain peaks.
-DAVID SHEPHERD
