olhos cor do mar

"Olhos encantados, olhos cor do mar

Olhos pensativos que fazeis sonhar!" 

                                            Vicente de Carvalho

I have really failed. My city is away, my youth gone, those blue eyes no more. Brando is dead, no bachelor's degree, no wine to sip inocently. I have really failed, you know, and try walking backwards ever since - tired of everything I am to see.

And tonight  I saw something.

I cannot explain the effect these things have on me, how they are myself. New York, on the waterfront, Bernstein, her at sleep for ever recurring. I used to watch her, you know, at night - that one bedroom apartment in the village, when I was twenty one, it had a window to the moon. Sometimes she talked to herself. She made comments on tiny events. What is this pot doing in the bathroom? So let me see.

There was something going on those days, something important. I never had a future again. I walked a lot, we met at night. I was mostly by myself during the day. What a beautiful island, that place.

And tonight I told this unknown girl the poem about the eyes with the color of the sea, the eyes that make you dream... And I tell you, she really looked at me and smiled.

What day is today?

I am going back, you know. I am always going back.