National Poetry Month 2020, Bonus Week: An excerpt from my poem, “Azorean Suite”

A little bit of heaven on Earth.
Photo by SEA.

If you’ve been following my blog for the past few years, you know that I’ve been on a journey of rediscovery—rediscovery of my Azorean Portuguese roots and heritage.

I’ve now been back to the island archipelago of my ancestors three times since my first return in 2018.

That first visit was under the auspices of a writing retreat offered by DISQUIET International, an organization that tries to link and foster relationships between Luso-American and Portuguese writers.

This journey has turned out to be more than just a heritage tour, for I’ve made many friends and discovered family I didn’t know I had there. And because I worked in nature conservation for so many years, I couldn’t help falling in love with the islands and their beauty and majesty, but also their fragility.

My own poetry and non-fiction have long been about a few essential themes: a longing for home and an appreciation and concern for the natural world. In the Azores, I’ve come to find a beautiful combination of both.

In addition to that longing (the Portuguese have a word for it, saudade, which I’ve defined elsewhere as a longing for lost things) is the feeling that I’ve found a home there, which I hope to fully realize in the not too distant future.

And my concern for the natural world there—in the face of future impacts of climate change on small island communities like the Azores—as well as the last remaining endemic species, is also deepening my relationship to the islands.

I’ve been exploring my love affair with the Azores in two works-in-progress (although, frankly, it’s showing up in just about everything I write these days): a research-driven memoir of my ancestry and heritage on the islands and a long poem that explores some of the same territory.

Recently, Gávea-Brown, a bilingual journal of Portuguese-American language and studies from Brown University, published an excerpt from my poem, which I’ve been calling “Azorean Suite,” in the original English and in a translation by the Azorean American poet José Francisco Costa.

It’s been an amazing journey thus far and I hope to return to the islands as soon as possible. Meanwhile, here is a section from my “Azorean Suite.”

From “Azorean Suite”

“Is the island a cloud or is the cloud and island?” ~Nemésio

The sea surrounds, is ever-present

            endless, the sea surrounds

                        and sea sounds swirl and sway

humid torpor of temperament

            fog enshrouds

                        clouds caught on peaks

wrapping the mountain

            a helmet of white, gray, ash

                        the ever-present volcanoes

threat of fire and destruction

            threat of sea-wind and wave

                        thread of saudade woven

into the fabric of all life

            on the islands—

                        saudades for the land

enshrouds the land

            enshrouds the islanders

                        surrounded by sea.

                        #

São Miguel, island of my ancestors

            who settled here in the original waves

                        1450s or earlier, as far as I can tell,

from the Alentejo, they came,

            encouraged or escaping

                        I know not—

São Miguel, the green island,

            jewel in the bracelet of archipelago,

                        formed by two volcanoes

reaching for each other

            a chain of eruptions enclosing

                        the space between them

populated, like that chain, scattered

            by wind and sea, until 1906,

                        when my great-grandparents left

for America—scattered across the sea.

                        #

My return, over a century later,

            fills me with mixed emotions—

                        have I come “home” or simply returned

to reclaim a lost heritage

            something denied to me

                        by my grandfather’s willingness

to forget the past, to relinquish

            the “saudades de terra”

                        so much a part of the Azorean character—

the phrase can mean “longing for the land”

            or “I miss the earth”

                        which seems so necessary now

with the threat of climate change

            added to the island condition—

                        sea-surge from hurricane Lorenzo overflowing

onto the low-lying streets at sea’s edge

            saltwater burning the wine grapes

                        flooding the edge of the villages

how high will the sea rise in the next century

            how will the islanders survive

                        what becomes of saudades de terra

when the land is swallowed by sea?

and here is José Francisco Costa’s translation into Portuguese:

Excerto de Suite Açoriana

 “A ilha é a nuvem ou a nuvem a ilha?” ~Nemésio   

O mar é um cerco, é contínua presença

            infinita, o mar é um cerco      

                        e os sons do mar rodopiam e arrastam-se

húmido torpor do ser

            nevoeiro mortalha

                        nuvens presas nos cimos

envolvendo a montanha

            um capacete de branca, parda, cinza

                        a inescapável presença dos vulcões

ameaça de fogo e destruição

            ameaça de vento e vaga de mar

                        fio de saudade urdido

no tecido da vida inteira

            nas ilhas –

                        saudades da terra

mortalha da terra

            mortalha de ilhéus

                        por mar cercados.

                        #

São Miguel, ilha dos meus antepassados

            que aqui fizeram morada nas ondas originais

                        1450 ou antes, tanto quanto sei,

do Alentejo, vieram,

             incentivados ou fugidos

                        Eu não sei—

São Miguel, a ilha verde,

            jóia no bracelete do arquipélago

                        nascida de dois vulcões

no encalce um do outro

            corrente de erupções estreitando

                        o espaço entre eles

povoado, como a tal corrente, espalhado

            por vento e mar, até 1906, 

                        quando os meus bisavós partiram

no encalce da América – espalhados em toda a largura do mar.

                        #

O meu regresso, mais de um século depois,

            enche-me de um contraste de emoções –  

                        terei regressado a “casa” ou só voltei

para reclamar uma herança perdida

            algo que me foi negado

                        pela vontade de meu avô

de esquecer o passado, renunciar

            às “saudades de terra”

                        parte tão importante do ser Açoriano —

a frase tanto significa “estar ansioso pela terra”

            como “a terra faz-me falta”

                        o que hoje parece ser tão necessário

com a ameaça das alterações climáticas

            a somar à condição de ser ilha —

                   gigantescas marés provocadas pelo furacão Lorenzo inundando

as ruas baixas à beira do mar

            água salgada queimando as vinhas

                        cobrindo os limites das freguesias

até onde subirá o mar no próximo século

            como irão sobreviver os ilhéus

                        o que resta de saudades de terra

quando a terra é engolida pelo mar?

—Scott Edward Anderson (translation into Portuguese by José Francisco Costa)

This excerpt, from a long poem-in-progress, originally appeared in Gávea-Brown—A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-American Letters and Studies

(I want to thank Onésimo Teotónio Almeida and Jennifer Currier for publishing my poem, and José Francisco Costa for his translation.)

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