Gaivota perdida by Adelino Tavares da Silva e Andrade ...

(...)

Adelino Tavares da Silva e Andrade may not have been a great poet ..., nor even a good husband to his wife (my mother) for sixteen consecutive years, in spite of having loved her profoundly ... I may even say he might not have been a father figure, (though we strongly loved each other) ... and yet he was a rather unique person ... an incredible "story teller" ... a journalist ... a theatre critic ... an actor ... a random poet ... 

Among the numerous poems he wrote, a particular one has caught my attention, not only because of being one of the most heartfelt poems I have ever read, which is more than a love poem to my mother (as she is the one he undoubtedly wrote it for) but also because it is the unveiling of his innermost feelings ... the ones related to who he really was and would always be ...

I have heard this poem sung several times ... yet never having seen it translated ...  decided to  translate it myself ...

"Gaivota perdida

Sou como um barco sem rota
que no alto mar fizera seu cais

Sou a imagem de gaivota
tonta de voar
e não para mais

Alguém me largou dentro de mim
Alguém me deixou tal como sou

Sem principio ou fim
deixado sozinho
sou asa que voa

Nao consigo encontrar-me
Não sei quem me prende
neste voo incerto

Vejo bem o sol sem grades
Vejo bem o firmamento
mas não me liberto

Alguém me esqueceu sem uma saudade
Alguém me prendeu nesta liberdade

Sem meio ou processo de voltar à vida
Sou ave perdida
que não tem regresso

Sem meio ou processo de voltar à vida
Sou ave perdida
que não tem regresso."





"Seagull flying astray

I feel like a boat drifting
in the high sea I've made anchoring quay

I am the mere image of a dizzy seagull
 in the ever unstoppable flying spree

I was thrown within myself
I was dropped the way I am

Without any beginning or end
 and left to my own fate
as a wing do I soar high

I cannot reach myself
Nor do I know who might hold me firm
in such an uneven flight

I see the sun without restrictions
I  can even reach the sky
but I can't escape from the "me" and from the "I"

I was forgotten without a yearning
yet caught in this freedom of mine

Without a way to go back to life
I am like a bird flying astray
who will never make it right

Without a way to go back to life
I am like a bird flying astray
who will never make it right"