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ou trazida por mão benigna,

o olhar desviado e terno,

canção.

A qualquer hora do dia ou da noite

quem a encontrar avise a Rua Santos Óleos.

Não tem telefone.

Tem uma empregada velha que apanha o recado

e tomará providências.

Mas

se acharem que a sorte dos povos é mais importante

e que não devemos atentar nas dores individuais,

se fecharem ouvidos a este apelo de campainha,

não faz mal, insultem a mãe de Luísa,

virem a página:

Deus terá compaixão da abandonada e da ausente,

erguerá a enferma, e os membros perclusos

já se desatam em forma de busca.

Deus lhe dirá:

Vai,

procura tua filha, beija-a e fecha-a para sempre em teu coração.

Ou talvez não seja preciso esse favor divino.

A mãe de Luísa (somos pecadores)

sabe-se indigna de tamanha graça.

E resta a espera, que sempre é um dom.

Sim, os extraviados um dia regressam

ou nunca, ou pode ser, ou ontem.

E de pensar realizamos.

Quer apenas sua filhinha

que numa tarde remota de Cachoeiro

acabou de nascer e cheira a leite,

a cólica, a lágrima.

Já não interessa a descrição do corpo

nem esta, perdoem, fotografia,

disfarces de realidade mais intensa

e que anúncio algum proverá.

Cessem pesquisas, rádios, calai-vos.

Calma de flores abrindo

no canteiro azul

onde desabrocham seios e uma forma de virgem

intata nos tempos.

E de sentir compreendemos.

Já não adianta procurar

minha querida filha Luísa

que enquanto vagueio pelas cinzas do mundo

com inúteis pés fixados, enquanto sofro

e sofrendo me solto e me recomponho

e torno a viver e ando,

está inerte

cravada no centro da estrela invisível

Amor.

DISAPPEARANCE OF LUISA PORTO

Anyone who knows

the whereabouts of Luisa Porto

please contact her residence

at 48 Rua Santos Óleos.

Urgently notify

her sick lonely mother

a longtime cripple

dependent on her care.

Anyone who sees

Luisa Porto, 37 years old,

please tell her to come home, to write, to let us know

where she is.

Amateur reporters,

sales clerks, mosquito exterminators, pedestrians,

anyone from the working or middle class

and even wealthy people are urged

to take pity on a worried mother

and bring home her missing daughter

or at least provide some information.

She’s tall, thin, dark-skinned,

slightly cross-eyed, with peach fuzz on her face,

white teeth, and a birthmark

next to her left eye.

Wears a housedress. Glasses.

Last seen three months ago.

Sought by her crippled mother.

The charitable people of this city

are asked to consider a family’s distress

deserving special sympathy.

Luisa is pleasant, courteous,

gentle, hardworking, and religious.

She went out to buy food at the public market.

She didn’t come back.

She had a little money in her pocket.

(Search for Luisa.)

She didn’t usually stay out long.

(Search for Luisa.)

She didn’t have a boyfriend.

(Search for her. Search.)

She’s greatly missed.

If despite your efforts she doesn’t turn up

don’t on that account quit searching

with perseverance and faith which God always rewards

and you may find her.

Her mother, a poor widow, hasn’t lost hope.

Since Luisa rarely went into town,

here in the neighborhood is the best place to investigate.

Her best friend, after her sick mother,

is a seamstress called Rita Santana, a single girl,

who hasn’t revealed any news,

answering all inquiries with: I don’t know.

Which is a little odd.

So many people disappear every year

in a city like Rio de Janeiro

that perhaps Luisa Porto will never be found.

Once, in 1898

or 9,

the chief of police himself disappeared.

He went out for a stroll on Rocio Square

and that was the last of him.

Luisa’s mother, still young,

read about it in the Mercantile Gazette

and was stunned.

The story remained engraved in her memory.

Little did she know that a brief marriage, widowhood,

poverty, paralysis, and sorrow

would be her lot in life

and that her only child, a cross-eyed but agreeable girl,

would mysteriously evaporate.

For the last time and in the name

of almighty and merciful God,

search for her, search for the girl

whose name is Luisa Porto

and who doesn’t have a boyfriend.

Forget political struggle,

put business matters aside,

and spend some time asking around,

poking, probing.

You won’t regret it. There’s nothing

more gratifying than the smile

of a jubilant mother

and the inner peace

ensuing from good and disinterested deeds,

sweet balm for the soul.

Don’t try telling me that Luisa committed suicide.

The sacred fire of faith

always burned in her soul,

which belongs to God and Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus.

She didn’t kill herself.

Search for her.

Nor was she the victim of some accident

unknown to the police

and unreported by the papers.

She’s alive to the great relief of a crippled old lady

and to the greater glory of maternal,

filial, and neighborly

love.

Don’t make lewd insinuations about this girl

who was chaste and didn’t, no she didn’t, have a boyfriend.

Something out of the ordinary must have happened,

an earthquake, or the arrival of a king.

The streets must have changed direction

for her to take so long, it’s already night.

But she’s bound to return, on her own

or led by a friendly hand,

her eyes looking away and so soft,

a song.

If anyone finds her, no matter what time

of day or night, please send word to Rua Santos Óleos.

There’s no telephone.

An old housekeeper will receive the message

and handle the rest.

But

if you feel that the plight of the masses is more important

and that we shouldn’t attend to individual sorrows,

if you’ve shut your ears to the ringing of this appeal,

then fine, you can insult Luisa’s mother

and turn the page:

God will pity the forlorn woman and her missing daughter,

he’ll raise up that cripple, whose feeble legs

will start kicking, ready to set out.

God will say:

Go,

find your daughter, kiss her, and keep her forever in your heart.

Or perhaps this divine favor won’t be necessary.

Luisa’s mother (we’re all sinners)

knows she’s unworthy of so much grace.

And there’s always the precious gift of hope.

Yes, the missing will come home one day,

or never, or maybe, or yesterday.

And thinking is a way of having.