I like to feel my tongue brushing
the tongue of Luís de Camões
I like to be and to breathe
and I am devoted creating
confusion of prosodies and a profusion of parodies
to shorten pains, and to steal colors like chameleons
I like Pessoa in the person, the rose in Rosa
I know that poetry is to prose
As love is to friendship
And who will deny that this is superior to love
Let the Portugals vanish in oblivio
"My fatherland is my tongue"

Caetano Veloso
Translated by Regina Vater and Bill Lundberg