Reproduced on the Comunidades blog 26 Nov 2016:
www.rtp.pt/acores/comunidades/joao-mendonca-a-verdade-do-poeta_52106
Translated into English by Katharine F. Baker & Emanuel Melo

The Poet’s Truth

It is from dreams that
Is woven the poet’s truth.
And poetry happens
When the poet forgets
To wake up on time

With a sleeping body
And a wide-awake soul
Life makes more sense
And whispers into the ear
The right word from dreamland

Then it’s only a matter of exchanging
Feelings for words
And cheating emotions
And making them confess
Their true intents

To dream is to bring a smile
To the most sorrowful tear
And to undress the nightmares
In order to dress them later
In a thousand rosy dreams

It is making the sun shine
During the darkest night
Putting sadness into song
And returning to the eyes
That precious light

It is to steal from the sunset
A ray of fading light
And make it into a beacon
That can illuminate the entire world.

NOTAS:

João Mendonça (1947-2004), banker, poet, lyricist, was a native of the island of São Miguel, where he lived and worked. He died in Horta, Faial.

Translator Katharine F. Baker, a second-generation native Californian whose paternal ancestors hailed from Flores and São Jorge, earned degrees from the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Maryland, and later studied Portuguese at the University of Pittsburgh.

Translator Emanuel Melo was born in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, and immigrated to Canada at age nine. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where he works as Associate Registrar at Victoria College. Also a writer, he created and maintains the website http://thetorzorean.com