Sunset Amazonica / Para que?

-Sunset Amazonica-

Your boat sits low
and you exude a proud glow,
like the Sun’s golden hand
that strolls the sand and water below.
Weighed down with pirarucu,
your small boat moves slow
toward the man at the dock his shoulders like tin plateaus.
The man is impressed by the catch he says,
admiring their fading tails of sunset red.
The man asked how long it took
and with a distant look
you replied,
“only a little while.
I have many hooks.”
The tin man asked what else you did
amid the forest of emerald atoms
where the fathoms of line slip away
in the river always a new blue shade.
You slept late and fished,
wandered the park drenched in jade
with local wine to sip, and found lots of time for your kids.
The man and his eyes, grey to the core,
implored you to fish more
to leave the shore overwhelmed with life
and head for lands with less blacks and more whites.
Away
from your hut made of Earth, where your daughter was birthed
by your sun-loved wife
so you could grow rich.
The man of tin spoke of a life so lavish;
retiring to the beach, to fish and sleep,
sip wine that’s been buried ten years deep.
Talk with your children,
sitting on millions
of green bills,
inked remains of your family,
that the grey men kill.
 

-Para quê?-

The splendor of a battle won,
the pirarucus’ red tail setting like the sun.
My boat squats low, heavy with my haul.
I race the squall. Ahead a tin man stands tall.
Stiff as the dock made by my machete,
he asked me how long it took to catch so many.
Long enough to miss my wife and child
but I told him, only a little while.
Today has been another gift.
I slept late and fished.
I’ll stroll through the bubbling jungle with my kids and a mug of earthy
wine to sip. He asked why I don’t persist.
He urged me to fish more, stay offshore until my boat
was sore. So I could use the profits to buy more.
But what for?
He advised that I should spend years
growing an enterprise to sell.
This money-making, life-taking commercial voyage from hell
could let me retire, sleep late and fish.
I could stroll through the park with wine to sip
and unwind, spend time
with my kids.
I asked how long it would take,
to cash in and come back home.
More than fifteen years I’d forsake; my children would be full grown.
This man had spun my head in a circle.
In this river, my family’s reflection
will be eternal.