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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=384037" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Manuelzinho</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">[Brazil. A friend of the writer is speaking.] </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)— <br>a sort of inheritance; white, <br>in your thirties now, and supposed <br>to supply me with vegetables, <br>but you don't; or you won't; or you can't <br>get the idea through your brain— <br>the world's worst gardener since Cain. <br>Titled above me, your gardens <br>ravish my eyes. You edge <br>the beds of silver cabbages <br>with red carnations, and lettuces <br>mix with alyssum. And then <br>umbrella ants arrive, <br>or it rains for a solid week <br>and the whole thing's ruined again <br>and I buy you more pounds of seeds, <br>imported, guaranteed, <br>and eventually you bring me <br>a mystic thee-legged carrot, <br>or a pumpkin &quot;bigger than the baby.&quot; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I watch you through the rain, <br>trotting, light, on bare feet, <br>up the steep paths you have made— <br>or your father and grandfather made— <br>all over my property, <br>with your head and back inside <br>a sodden burlap bag, <br>and feel I can't endure it <br>another minute; then, <br>indoors, beside the stove, <br>keep on reading a book. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">You steal my telephone wires, <br>or someone does. You starve <br>your horse and yourself <br>and your dogs and family. <br>among endless variety, <br>you eat boiled cabbage stalks. <br>And once I yelled at you <br>so loud to hurry up <br>and fetch me those potatoes <br>your holey hat flew off, <br>you jumped out of your clogs, <br>leaving three objects arranged <br>in a triangle at my feet, <br>as if you'd been a gardener <br>in a fairy tale all this time <br>and at the word &quot;potatoes&quot; <br>had vanished to take up your work <br>of fairy prince somewhere. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The strangest things happen to you. <br>Your cows eats a &quot;poison grass&quot; <br>and drops dead on the spot. <br>Nobody else's does. <br>And then your father dies, <br>a superior old man <br>with a black plush hat, and a moustache <br>like a white spread-eagled sea gull. <br>The family gathers, but you, <br>no, you &quot;don't think he's dead! <br>I look at him. He's cold. <br>They're burying him today. <br>But you know, I don't think he's dead.&quot; <br>I give you money for the funeral <br>and you go and hire a bus <br>for the delighted mourners, <br>so I have to hand over some more <br>and then have to hear you tell me <br>you pray for me every night! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then you come again, <br>sniffing and shivering, <br>hat in hand, with that wistful <br>face, like a child's fistful <br>of bluets or white violets, <br>improvident as the dawn, <br>and once more I provide <br>for a shot of penicillin <br>down at the pharmacy, or <br>one more bottle of <br>Electrical Baby Syrup. <br>Or, briskly, you come to settle <br>what we call our &quot;accounts,&quot; <br>with two old copybooks, <br>one with flowers on the cover, <br>the other with a camel. <br>immediate confusion. <br>You've left out decimal points. <br>Your columns stagger, <br>honeycombed with zeros. <br>You whisper conspiratorially; <br>the numbers mount to millions. <br>Account books? They are Dream Books. <br>in the kitchen we dream together <br>how the meek shall inherit the earth— <br>or several acres of mine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With blue sugar bags on their heads, <br>carrying your lunch, <br>your children scuttle by me <br>like little moles aboveground, <br>or even crouch behind bushes <br>as if I were out to shoot them! <br>—Impossible to make friends, <br>though each will grab at once <br>for an orange or a piece of candy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Twined in wisps of fog, <br>I see you all up there <br>along with Formoso, the donkey, <br>who brays like a pump gone dry, <br>then suddenly stops. <br>—All just standing, staring <br>off into fog and space. <br>Or coming down at night, <br>in silence, except for hoofs, <br>in dim moonlight, the horse <br>or Formoso stumbling after. <br>Between us float a few <br>big, soft, pale-blue, <br>sluggish fireflies, <br>the jellyfish of the air... </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Patch upon patch upon patch, <br>your wife keeps all of you covered. <br>She has gone over and over <br>(forearmed is forewarned) <br>your pair of bright-blue pants <br>with white thread, and these days <br>your limbs are draped in blueprints. <br>You paint—heaven knows why— <br>the outside of the crown <br>and brim of your straw hat. <br>Perhaps to reflect the sun? <br>Or perhaps when you were small, <br>your mother said, &quot;Manuelzinho, <br>one thing; be sure you always <br>paint your straw hat.&quot; <br>One was gold for a while, <br>but the gold wore off, like plate. <br>One was bright green. Unkindly, <br>I called you Klorophyll Kid. <br>My visitors thought it was funny. <br>I apologize here and now. <br>You helpless, foolish man, <br>I love you all I can, <br>I think. Or I do? <br>I take off my hat, unpainted <br>and figurative, to you. <br>Again I promise to try.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Elizabeth+Bishop">Elizabeth Bishop</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=384037" data-title="Manuelzinho de Elizabeth Bishop" data-description="[Brazil. A friend of the writer is speaking.] 


Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)— 
a sort of inheritance; white, 
in your thirties now, and supposed 
to supply me with vegetables, 
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't 
get the idea thr..."></div>
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