Tibelle

The first time I learned more about Angola than the superficial fact that it was once a Portuguese colony was during a seminar on politics of African states- it has an incredibly interesting history and is a fascinating place! I wound up doing a policy analysis focusing on Angolan politics post its four civil wars, and then found myself really wanting to go there. A couple former professors of mine who have done some extensive traveling and work in Angola have been more than supportive, so perhaps after I get my master’s degree it will be something I can do.

I have a thing for temperate coastal cities, I love the sea- someone once told me that Lisbon, San Francisco, and Valparaiso have so much in common. And I’ve been captivated by this poem by Neruda, here is the English translation:

I love, Valparaíso, everything you enfold,
and everything you irradiate, seabride,
even beyond your mute nimbus.
I love the violent light with which you turn
to the sailor on the sea night,
and then, orange-blossom rose,
you’re luminous and naked, fire and fog.
Let no one come with a turbid hammer
to pound what I love, to defend you:
none but my being for your secrets:
none but my voice for your open
rows of dew, for your steps
on which the sea’s brackish materninty
kisses you, none but my lips
on your cold siren’s crown,
raised in the air of the heights,
oceanic love, Valparaíso.
Queen of all the world’s coasts,
true headquarters of waves and ships,
you’re in me like the moon or like
the bearing of the wind in the treetops,
I love your criminal alleyways,
your daggerlike moon upon the hills,
and amid your plazas the seafolk
decking springtime in blue.

Please understand, I beg you, my seaport,
that I’m entitled
to write you the good and the evil
and I’m like bitter lamps
when they illuminate broken bottles.

Almost there… I’ll be spending a week there at the end of August! :-)