Oh Lisbon
I would so like to be
The third crow in your shield
To be implicit in your flag
Black and white
Like ink and paper
Like script and space!
To be your drafted shape
Your new legend
Invention of this century
That no longer invents
And wonders:
Where have these crows come from?
Like you, Vincent,
I’m not from these parts
Not from this place
Not from this land
And perhaps I don’t even
Belong to this world...
Yet here I am
On this sorrowful Lusitanian beach
Full of a useless turmoil
That blackens your sands
And pollutes the river’s womb
Long abandoned by the dolphins
And seeing the clouds fingered by the wind
Feeling the gentle pain of your felt feelings
I beg you, Lisbon,
Rise again in beauty
Reinvent
The lost sanctity of your shield