Aged breeze touched wisps of her hair
and she closed her eyes receiving its embrace.
Is it you, she asked, as it entwined itself in the crevice of her neck,
leaving a calling card from the finger tips of clouds.
Then she saw it, the memory of the night,
cradling her as a babe, loving her as the mother of song,
and she embraced its spell with a bitter sweet kiss,
embellishing a fancy thought, that it loved her too.
Ai Mouraria,
through rooftops you have traveled endless days,
wrapped in the current that now flows free.
The smell of the fishes, the sea, the taste of salt on lips,
leaves one yearning for the sustenance of yesterday.
Ai Mouraria,
how she has loved you,
and in an instant you are gone.
tainting her as and old lover
returning now and again with tragic kisses.
Ai Mouraria,
now she waits, in the twilight of forever,
with fado from long ago,
trailing her feet,
as she walks bare through saudade,
where now and again
she yearns for your touch
where now and again
the emptiness is replaced
where now and again,
she is wrapped in an alley with no name,
and she lives, forever.....
© Dawn Michelle
Author's Note:
Mouraria is an old medieval neighbourhood
in Lisbon Portugal which is the birthplace of the Fado music genre. In
Mouraria you will see the traditional, not-yet-gentrified old Lisbon
rich in history and tradition
fa•do (ˈfɑ du, -doʊ) n., pl. -dos. a Portuguese folk song that is typically of doleful or fatalistic character.
Saudade: is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic
longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it
often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might
never return. A stronger form of saudade might be felt towards people
and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a
family member who has gone missing, moved away, separated, or died.
Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is
gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or
events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now
triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an
emptiness, like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling,
grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used
to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that
should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual
feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings altogether, sadness
for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.
In Portuguese, "Tenho saudades tuas" (European Portuguese), translates
as "I have (feel) saudade of you" meaning "I miss you", but carries a
much stronger tone. In fact, one can have saudade of someone whom one is
with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future. For
example, one can have "saudade" towards part of the relationship or
emotions once experienced for/with someone, though the person in
question still is part of one's life, as in "Tenho saudade do que fomos"
(I feel "saudade" of the way we were). Another example can illustrate
this use of the word saudade: "Que saudade!" indicating a general
feeling of longing, whereby the object of longing can be a general and
undefined entity/occasion/person/group/period etc. This feeling of
longing can be accompanied or better described by an abstract will to be
where the object of longing is.