Red Room Where the Writers Are

It´s been a tough week. I´ll just share my humble and imperfect, thus free, translation of Poema em Linha Reta by Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa):

Poem in a Straight Line

America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom of independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

When I was a kid, my mother worked at various jobs.

The difficulty I have wrapping my head around patriotism is one I sometimes share with other children of immigrants, those whose heritage, like mine, was stamped with the dark face of nationalism, the imprint of a patriotism that believed the country where our forebears were born would be purified by our absence.

You're three and a half years old, sitting at a park bench in the middle of Chicago on a muggy afternoon. There are various three and a half year old children around.

We have forgotten to ask ourselves what is ethical and moral. We have left those questions to people who call themselves intellectuals or leaders.