The title is Portuguese for "The Steps of Carnival." Written mostly in English with pieces of it in French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Just mulling over carnival time in Brazil, and especially in Colombia and Chile where I used to live. The parties down by the water front were usually the most lively, and it's where I'd always like to go.

At twelve o'clock in the morning the parties would abruptly end as a result of it being Ash Wednesday. Men who'd paid for any services would come stumbling out of their hotel rooms--shoved out by their temporary lovers--with their pants around their ankles. Women who'd been gambling away their clothing in game after game of cards would walk home naked.

Fun stuff for an impressionable teen!

Edit: I decided that I should also add here the straight English version. Also, I noticed that the file that I had originally uploaded was faulty; that has now been fixed.




The Dance Steps of Carnival

Passing, pausing, over your steps
I dance at your side,
I move with your body
Hearts pump,
The rhythms of the songs pass through the two of us

The music . . . it’s all around
My dear, it is Summertime
Let us live for today and forget tomorrow,
Leave behind the soot and sorrow.

The carnival lights are flashing,
The river’s waters burble at the bank.
It sings its songs and waves dance along.
Measure out the space between us
Bar by bar and step by step

The fiddle weeps and laughs
As notes are falling, flying, across the strings—
Falling, from the tetragram of heaven.
And the sounds uproar,
And the ground uplifts

At midnight, the sounds and dancing die,
Yet, we are one.
I want you more than carnival
So the carnival fires die,
But not you and I . . .
Not you and I . . .