PROMONTORY Poem by Lêdo Ivo

I always sought the profusion of the rains
and celebrated excess.

The door that opens on the clarity of lightning
divides the day into unequal parts.
But between the light and shadow there is a space
where dream and waking life join like two bodies
separated from their severed souls.
It is to this place that I return
when the rain falls in Maceió, dislodging the leaves
of the blossoming cashew trees.
The restless crabs notice in their tiny dens the changing of the world
that wavers between mud and mango roots
like two colors in a rainbow.

Cradle of tanajura ants, land threatened by thunder,
sleep-walking dunes that only walk at night,
sea that moistens the cracked lips of the sand,
wind that tears at the promontory,
far from you I'll be in banishment.