River of Forgetting

Rio de Janeiro, Rio,
you were river, you are sea:
what runs rolling down to Rio
rolls back slow, so easily.

In your breast the daylight ripens
with eternity of calm:
for each hour your hand unfastens,
back an hour or more will come.

The cloudbanks filter your mountains,
sponges of clearest light;
you rarefy even the swansdown
that the tempest throws in the dirt.

What annoyance can withstand you,
if at every salty taste
your breezes are all sugar-candy,
your light pure, honest and chaste?

Land runs into water, playing,
city touches virgin ground,
darkness enters into evening,
nothing stays their open hand.

Next to the household’s murmur
song of your thrush, the sabiá;
woman and fruit, one aroma,
two emanations there.

Whoever once has known you
finds in you his solace,
whoever has rested in you
has forgetting of all else.