Tristeza no céu

No céu também há uma hora melancólica.
Hora difícil, em que a dúvida penetra as almas.
Por que fiz o mundo? Deus se pergunta
e se responde: Não sei.

Os anjos olham-no com reprovação,
e plumas caem.

Todas as hipóteses: a graça, a eternidade, o amor
caem, são plumas.

Outra pluma, o céu se desfaz.
Tão manso, nenhum fragor denuncia
o momento entre tudo e nada,
ou seja, a tristeza de Deus.

Sadness in the sky

In heaven too comes an hour of melancholy.
A difficult hour, in which doubt penetrates the souls.
Why did I create the world? Asks God himself
and replies: I don't know.

The angels look at him with disapproval,
and feathers fall.

All hypothesis: grace, eternity, love
fall, are feathers.

One more feather, heaven falls apart.
So smoothly, no roaring reveals
the moment between everything and nothing,
or be it, the sadness of God.

CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE
tr. Germain Droogenbroodt

© Heirs Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Carlos Drummond de Andrade, born in Itabira, Brasil October 31, 1902 – died in Rio de Janeiro August 17,1987. At thirteen he was admitted to his School’s Dramatic and Literary Club Artur Azevedo, and still adolescent he published his works in the boarding school’s newspaper.  At twenty he was already publishing in the newspaper “Diário de Minas” and in the magazines “ Para Todos” and “Ilustração Brasileira”.  Although graduated from the School of Odontology and Pharmacy of Belo Horizonte , he choose literature as his. In 1925 he founded  “A Revista” which has become the herald of the Minas Gerais modernism. Drummond was awarded several prizes for his works. His work reflects the conflict that permeated his life: on the one hand the eagerness for political and social changes, on the other hand the sympathy with the tradition values. Struggling within this conflict the poet lived deeply hurt and also torn away from his origins and the world. Trying to mirror his time without abandoning the mankind’s larger context, Drummond became one of the major poets of Latin America . Drummond de Andrade wrote a large number of erotic poems: “O amor natural”.  His impressive poetic oeuvre has been published in many languages.