There Are Many Traps in the World

There are many traps in the world
and what is a trap could be a refuge
and what is a refuge could be a trap

Your window, for instance,
open to the sky
and a star saying that humanity is nothing
or the morning sparkling on the beach
waving, before Cabral, before Troy
[four centuries ago Tomas Bequimao
took the city, created a people's police
and then was betrayed, jailed and hanged]

There are many traps in the world
and many mouths telling you
that life is too little
and life is too crazy
And why not the Bomb? they ask you.
Why not the Bomb to end it all, since
life is crazy?

Yet you look at your son, the kid
who doesn't know,
who gives himself to life and wants life
and seeks the sun, the sphere, fascinated, sees
the airplane and asks and asks

Life is little
life is crazy
And you didn't kill yourself, that's the truth

You're a prisoner of life as if you were in a cage.
We're all prisoners
in this cage that Gagarin saw for the first time
from above, and said: "It's blue."
And we already knew it, so well
that you did not kill yourself and will not
kill yourself
and will endure it till the end.

It's certain that in this cage there are those who have
and those who don't
there are those who have so much that they alone could
feed the whole city
and those who havent' enough for today's lunch

The star is a liar
the sea is a Sophist. In fact,
man is tied to life and needs to live
man is hungry
and needs to eat
man has children
who need to be raised
There are many traps in the world
and they have to be shattered.

-by Ferreira Gullar,trans. from the Portugese by Renato Rezende