Urgently By Eugénio de Andrade

I guess since I started to read and write I got fascinated by poetry, and Eugénio de Andrade (1923 - 2005)  became one of my favorite Portuguese Poets.

Eugénio de Andrade won all of Portugal's major literary awards and many other international prizes for Poetry. He's poetry is always simple, in general with short but intense poems, apparently simple they always evoke physical and material energy and the plenitude of the senses and life, trough naked words and images focusing on the world of matter . He always uses the classical archaic elements of earth, water, air and fire, also the human body with a soft and delicate dose of sensuality and sexuality.

While teenager, I had the privilege to meet him in a poetry conference and had some of my books autographed by him, a little treasure that i will always keep with love.

The poem below is a famous one, from the book "Forbidden Words - Selected Poems" and though its short is full of meaning.

Basically its says that it it important to search happiness  in order to end war and the sadnesses of life, For that we should seize and nurture the Love, the Freedom 'a boat upon the sea', the joy and the hope 'glistening mornings', the Nature 'discover roses and rivers' and destroy the hate, cruelty and loneliness and destroy 'many swords' symbol of war and violence.

Definitely it would be great to be able to leave in a better place, a place of love where it would be possible to eliminate the negative side of the world and life, and it's there that you see the difficulty of it 'Silence and impure light fall upon/ our shoulders till they ache'.

Simple and beautiful…

URGENTLY

It’s urgent — love.

It’s urgent — a boat upon the sea.

It’s urgent to destroy certain words,

hate, solitude, and cruelty,

some moanings,

many swords.

It’s urgent to invent a joyfulness,

multiply kisses and cornfields,

discover roses and rivers

and glistening mornings — it’s urgent.

Silence and an impure light fall upon

our shoulders till they ache.

It’s urgent — love, it’s urgent

to endure.

Urgently By Eugénio de Andrade (Forbidden Words - Selected Poems)