image via National Geographic
Tickets are finally purchased. Ian and I will be heading down to Brazil for the holidays. The trip includes a quick trip to the South, where my family lives and then Rio; a day visiting architecture landmarks in Brasilia is also in the agenda.
Brazil is so much more than just sunny beaches and tiny swimsuits (That’s just the beginning…). It’s such an inspiring place.
I am already overwhelmed by memories of songs, sonnets, poems, architecture, landscapes that make up the image of Brazil and these 3 particular regions in my mind.
I will be sharing some of this with you as they come to mind and as I plan our trip.
To begin, I will leave you with a translation of a sonnet from one of my favorite “Carioca” (from Rio) poets, Mr. Olavio Bilac:
Milky Way – Sonnet XIII
Well (thou´ll say) hearing stars! Certainly
Thou´ve lost your mind!” And I´ll say to thee, however
That, to hear them, many times I wake
And open the windows, palid in awe…
And we talk all night long, while
The milky way, as an open canopy,
Shines. And, at the coming of the sun, missing and crying,
I still look for them in the desert sky.
Thou´ll now say: “Crazed friend!
What do thou talk to them? What sense
Has what they say, when they are with thee?”
And I´ll say to thou: “Love to understand them!
Because only he who loves may have ears
Capable of hearing and understanding stars.”
