Vera Duarte [Cape Verde]

 

I African, confess
 
I African, confess
Bird with roots buried in the wind
Trunk with fins on petals
Ruby flower born in the quagmire
Shouting in the middle of the desert
The song of the sea of islands
 
I African, confess
Woman of imponderable wanderings
In a world of dystopias
Following routes of despair
Toppling all suffering
 
I African, confess
Woman of the world and unbridled passions
Of unyielding loves
Inconsequential and fearless
But always with clenched fists
Resilient in the desert of hope
 
I African, confess
Visionary and idealist
Searching for oases of life
Dreaming of a free Africa
Without martyred people
Nor people in devastating convulsions
                I African, confess... 
 
 
A new Dawn
 
I sought Cabral
In the chapters of history
In international seats
In government elites
 
I looked for Cabral
On the Onusian benches
In the busy arteries
Of world conferences
 
But I only found him
In the smile of a child
In the cadenced melody of a wave
On the dusty roads
The pathways of the contractors
 
I only found him
In the rice fields in gestation
In the cleaning of rifles
In the night pregnant with daggers
 
I only found him
In the ghettos of the humiliated
Waving the banner of the oppressed
For a new Dawn
 
 
Nocturnal nightmares
 
How to fall asleep without nightmares
If in every dream one can only fit
Images of terror
 
Squalid faces
Bloodstained clothes
And exorbitant eyes
 
How to fall asleep without nightmares
When the images of the blue sea
Only reflect
Lying bodies of destitute immigrants
Terrified stowaways
Starved refugees
 
How can I fall asleep without nightmares
When the painful melody
That lulls my dreams
Is the pitiful cry
Of the damned of the earth
 
How long,
Oh heaven!
Will I carry
Such nocturnal nightmares?
 
 

Author’s Bionote:
 
*Vera Duarte (Vera Duarte Lobo de Pina), Cape Verdean judge, human rights activist, poet and fiction writer, graduated in Law from the University of Lisbon. Member of the Cape Verdean Academies of Letters and Sciences of Lisbon. Member of the Institute for African Women in Law. Awarded by the Government and the President of the Republic. Prize Laureate the North-South Human Rights Awards from Council of Europe; Tchicaya UTamsi the Poésie Africaine, Sonangol of Literature, Guerra Junqueiro of Literature and Prémio CPLP. She published: Amanhã Amadrugada (poetry), O Arquipélago da Paixão (poetry), A Candidata (novel), Preces e Súplicas ou os Cânticos da Desesperança (poetry), Construindo a Utopia (essays), Ejercicios poéticos (poetry), A Palavra e os Dias (chronicles), A Matriarca - uma estória de mestiçagens (novel), De Risos & Lágrimas (poetry), A Reinvenção do Mar (poetry), Cabo Verde Um Roteiro Sentimental (essays), Naranjas en el Mar (bilingual poetic anthology), Contos Crepusculares-Metamorfoses (short stories), Desassossegos & Acalantos (micro-tales), Vénus Crioula (novel) and Urdindo Palavras no Silêncio dos Dias (poetry).