Today, was the day when Augusto Gil was remembered!
I am from a generation of Portuguese Lisbon city kids that read a famous and memorable poem by Augusto Gil in school, called "A balada da Neve" (in Portuguese). Please read it only if you understand Portuguese, and under no occasion translate the first phrase with an online translator, please.. You would end up with "They beat has led, lightly, as who flame for me". Believe me, this (if it ever makes sense) is far from the meaning of the original poem.
The poem is about this sound, this light sound.. Sound of a gentle know at the door or elsewhere unimportant, as if someone would be calling.. But it could not be people doing it, and it could not be rain as much! Alike, wind could be not, for the quietly melancholic pine tree needles had been soundless a while past...
But this beautiful poem came to memory only because of the visual notion I had made of snow! Nothing else even faintly resembled reality! This reality, at least! Pine trees? - none! Windless? no, there is some wind! Light sound? - what sound? I can't hear it! Knocking sound? - are you deaf? I can't hear a thing!
None of the poem's description fitted reality.. This reality.. But it was snowing! That, indeed, it was!
But I remember so well, running outside towards the observatory to go get my camera.. I was running against the wind, and the harmlessly cold snow flocks were attaching be. I could hear the anger of impacts against my jacket. I arrived at the observatory filled with crispy white dots that refused to meld against the coldness of my clothes. But when I run back at the same speed of the wind, snow flocks danced in front of me in a magical and inconstant uncertainty..
The lazzy white flocks lasted around 30 minutes, flying around like lost ants, before wind-rushed rain washed it from memory.. It was only enough time to leave a short-lived white sheet of color over vegetation, rocks, and picnic tables.
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