Hope

Ze’sopol Caminha

When I expected your help you were silent
in one thousand tongues, but … supported my enemies

My home is burnt to ashes
My friends lie dead

Destruction and chaos
there is no hope

Like a mosquito you suck blood
from every part of my body

When my body is pale
then you come like a saviour

scattering me like flowers
to complete your subordination

When I rise from the dead
covered with blossoms

you claim to own them
You pick them

although I am the owner
but for me, only the tree and leaves  

[Farol, 25 February 2000]

Translated by Heather Curnow