Waiting for a train

September 13, 2018

One of my favorite artists has been Chico Buarque, a Brazilian poet, musician, and writer. I got a record of his early songs when I was in graduate school, and a standout on that very old L.P. is “Pedro Pedreiro”, a song that still resonates with me. Here are some of my very inexpertly translated (Portuguese to English via Spanish) lyrics.

Pedro Pedriero is waiting for a train

Tomorrow it seems that he will awaken

To wait again

– – – – –

Waiting for a lottery ticket

Or for the carnival

Or for a son to wait too

Or for the day to return to the North

Maybe he is waiting for death

Pedro doesn’t know it yet

But maybe deep down he awaits something

More beautiful than the world,

Bigger than the sea

But then why dream?

Why give in to the desperation

Of too much waiting?

– – – – –

Pedro Pedriero is waiting for a train

And now it is coming

I am aware of how much of my life has been waiting, for something unimaginably beautiful, for something immeasurably immense. But what I have found is this moment, absolutely removed from waiting, in stillness and silence. That is the ultimate reality. The rest is illusion.