The Fado Suite

The Fado Suite
 
 
A cry for hope.
 
Tenderness?
Sure, but so little.
 
Just because a swallow dies, spring does not end.
 
The soul gets tired.
 
The fingers take orders from the heart.
 
We leave our bodies when we sing.
 
The alchemy of sound and poem,
it’s inside us from birth.
 
**

 I cannot remember if
there was a candle
on the clothed table
set for one.
 
I do remember the vinho verde
chilling in a teakwood bucket,
poured solemnly between 
sets of fado, smoldering and
mournful
 
tearful singer, wet cheeks lit
by dying candlelight.
 
I remember.
 
**
 
Listening to Amalia with the windows
wide open,
saudade piercing the autumn
evening gloom.
 
My new Portuguese guitar
yearns for me to learn, to teach
old fingers new licks, so I dream
 
I am wandering the calcadas in Lisbon
inventing my own heteronyms, humming
melodies born under different names.
 
I greet Fernando Pessoa,
“Bom dia, Senhor. I saw you sitting
outside the Brasileira today but
you were not actually there
nor anywhere else.”
 
“That is how I prefer it,”
they replied without inflection
then vanished scientifically
in the color-swarm of Chiado hordes…
 
I awake to Amalia singing
life’s last song,
to the gray-soaked murk and
swirling fog.
 
The music pours through
my opened heart.
 
My weeping eyes listen
to the distant, wild ocean wind.

(c) Eric Walter 2022