I wish you (i. e.) The Vows

I love poems and I love translating poems as well. I speak native portuguese, but in my own personal will to write in English, I decided one day that if I could translate poems, then I could tell I'd know English. But that was just after I dreamed in English, and I used to say that the day I dreamed in English would be the day I'd be fluent in it.

So far I figured that maybe what makes a person fluent in English in the 21st century is the probably the same reason the french René Déscartes had to know Latin in his time to be well versed in the texts available to him at the time.

And so I decided to share a new translation, of a new poem, that I recently got in contact with, and wishing that it finds a place in your soul as well. And it will.

The translation will improve with time and, of course, with the help of you who are visiting this page. The original follows below too for those who enjoy reading in other languages. These are certainly wise words, so save them well.

Happy new year!

I wish you (i. e) The Vows
by Sérgio Jockymann
translated by Leonardo Dias

First I wish you that you love
and that, loving, be loved as well
and if you are not, forget it soon.

And if you forget, let go the sorrow.

I wish you, then, not to live like this,

but if you do, know how to do it without despair.

I wish you friends as well

even those mean and mindless

that are brave and faithfull,

And that you have at least one of them

that you can trust without a doubt.

And because life is like this,

I also wish you to have enemies.

Not too many, not too few,

but the exact amount so that you can, once in a while

ask yourself about

your own certainties.

And let at least one among them be fair

so that you can not be too safe.

I wish you to be useful,

but not unreplaceable.

And that when bad times come,

When nothing rests anymore,

this usefulness will be enough to keep you up.

I also wish you to be tolerant,

Not with those that makes little mistakes, because this is easy,

But with those that do it a lot and irremediably,

And that making good use of this tolerance

Let you be an example to other people.

I wish that you, being young,

do not be in hurry to be mature,

And that being mature, do not insist in getting younger

And that being old, do not dedicate yourself to despair.

Because each age has its pleasure and pain and

we must let it flow off us.

I wish you, by the way, that you be sad,

Not the whole year, but only for a day.

But that in that day you find out

That the daily smile is good,

The usual smile is dull and the constant smile is insane.

I wish you that you find out

with maximum urgency

Above all and in respect of everything, that there are the oppressed,

The unfairness and unhapiness around you.

I wish you that you nourish a cat

and feed a bird and listen to it

singing exultantly its morning song

because then you would be happy for nothing.

I wish you that you plant a seed,

no matter how small,

and that you watch it grow,

so that you know from how many

lives are made a tree.

I wish you, also, that you have money,

because it is necessary to be practical.

And that at least once a year

You put some of them

in front of you and say "This is mine",

just to keep clear who owns who.

I also wish that no one of your beloved ones die,

For him and for you,

But that if someone die, that you may cry

Without being sorry and suffering, without being guilty.

I also wish you that, being a man,

that you have a good wife,

and that being a woman,

that you have a good man,

and that you love each other now, tomorrow and in the following days,

and that whenever you are tired and happy,

I wish you that there will be love to start over.

And that if all of these things happen,

I will have nothing else to wish you.

Original in Portuguese