Sonnet of Intimacy

Vinícius de Moraes (October 1913 – 9 July 1980), was a Brazilian poet, lyricist, essayist, and playwright. He served as a diplomat and composed bossa nova music.

“Farm afternoons, there’s much too much blue air.

I go out sometimes, follow the pasture track,

Chewing a blade of sticky grass, chest bare,

In threadbare pajamas of three summers back,

To the little rivulets in the river-bed

For a drink of water, cold and musical,

And if I spot in the brush a glow of red,

A raspberry, spit its blood at the corral.

The smell of cow manure is delicious.

The cattle look at me unenviously.

And when there comes a sudden stream and hiss.

Accompanied by a look not unmalicious,

All of us, animals, unemotionally

Partake together of a pleasant piss.”

---

Original poem by Vinícius de Moraes | translation from the French by Elizabeth Bishop – Uncollected Translations (1950 – 1975) to the book “POEMS, The Centenary Editions”, by Chatto & Windus Publisher, LONDON.