OH LISBON!

THE THIRD CROW

Oh Lisbon
I would so like to be
The third crow in your shield
To be implicit in your flag
Black and white
Like ink and paper
Like script and space!

To be your drafted shape
Your new legend
Invention of this century
That no longer invents
And wonders:
Where have these crows come from?

Like you, Vincent,
I’m not from these parts
Not from this place
Not from this land
And perhaps I don’t even
Belong to this world...

Yet here I am
On this sorrowful Lusitanian beach
Full of a useless turmoil
That blackens your sands
And pollutes the river’s womb
Long abandoned by the dolphins

And seeing the clouds fingered by the wind
Feeling the gentle pain of your felt feelings
I beg you, Lisbon,
Rise again in beauty
Reinvent
The lost sanctity of your shield

Ana Hatherly (May 8, 1929 – August 5, 2015), Portuguese academic, poet, visual artist, and writer, in O Pavão Negro. Translated by Ana Hudson. Hatherly was considered one of the pioneers of experimental poetry and literature movement in Portugal. She was born in Porto, Portugal, and held a degree in Germanic philology from the University of Lisbon and a doctorate in Hispanic studies from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as training in both film and music. Hatherly was a professor of human and social sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where she founded the university's Institute of Portuguese Studies.

Photo: OH LISBON!, gorgeous Lisbon downtown and S. Jorge Castle, seen from the top of Sta. Justa lift, Lisbon, Portugal. (July, 2017)