My soul is in a hurry (by Mario de Andrade)

Occasionally, LinkedIn feeds my soul. I thank a new LinkedIn contact Stan Holden (and the free-writing of Anthony Hopkins) for a piece of a jigsaw missing from my reading list – namely “My soul is in a hurry” by Mario de Andrade. LinkedIn feeding my soul simply by being connected to people better (or at least differently) read to myself.

I was going to simply copy and paste the poem here. However, there seem to be many translations and free write alternatives to the stanzas of the Brazilian Portuguese original. It seems the done thing is to free-write it, so this is as I received it.

-//-

I have less to live than lived. Much as the few cherries left in the bowl tend to be savoured, so will those few years I have left be tasted all the more. I therefore give less time to constraints as dictated by other peoples' laws; those changing in name but still harbouring a foolishness of youth or claims of a better yesterday. Less time to spend in the company of ego or manipulation. Less tolerance to the suffering of envy, and the false framing by those merely usurping one power to claim the same as their own. All such headlines land unread. My soul is in a hurry, with fewer cherries left to pick from in the bowl. 

The humour in humanity now interests me. To laugh at one's own mistakes most of all. Show me that face, and I will show you success - those who embrace facing up to ones responsibility. Show me those people and you show me the dignity of life lived to uphold truth, justice, and the rights of all - and what else is life for? Henceforth, I surround myself in the company of those with hearts big enough for others. Those brave enough to take their fates, whilst lifting themselves and their fellowship to the heightened softness of their own soul. 

Of course I broker my own path! I decide to broker a path with the wisdom of a past; both the breaks and that broken path. The wisdom of age, wise enough to savour the flavour of those last cherries more than those already had. A clarity and intensity of flavour with which to go forth with a more resonate sense of my finitude, my place, and life's totality. My first life spent often thinking upon my second, my second now understood as merely the more dignified continuation of what has come before. [My soul now in a hurry, for a little more].

-//-

A free write – based upon the wisdom of Mario de Andrade, and the many voices who have since found their own version of standing so firmly upon their place.

LinkedIn post {here}

One of many sources of poem extracts available {here}