Brazil wasn't born in a straight line.
Sprouts tidal curves,
of a drum that calls back to the origin,
of steps that came long before the map.
Born with dark skin, sweat clouded with salt,
ancestral memory, Bahia shaken with axé,
Indigenous chant that names the wind,
Europeans lost in memories and forgetfulness,
Salvador de borogodó,
A tenuous line of Brazil that seemed to be one single entity.
In samba, Rio de Janeiro,
Swinging the tambourine for a whole year,
It is in Bahia that sings, in the people who dance samba,
on the praying bank,
in the people who perform miracles with the little they have.
Life pulsates and gives its blood and joy.
masterfully keeping the rhythm of Rio,
in the dust of the market, in the drawling speech of the street,
even before history was written.
Brasilia is a design for the future.
But the present has always lived far away.
Between axles that don't break,
The people's assessment is not appropriate.
inequality that is out of tune,
the miracle that returns to rhythm,
the hope that leads the chorus
even without having sheet music.
Brasília is a calculated symphony.
And Brazil is samba written in its heart.
It hits the wrong end of the line.
By Fernanda Mari Parada
Instagram @fernandapoetica