Party at the Manor House [excerpts]
(Congressional rhythm, Northeast accent)
1
– The sugar mill worker
in a large or small mill
– Is the same mill worker
with a different rhyme.
– The sugar mill worker
in a raw mill or refinery:
– "Sugar mill worker"
is the crucial denominator.
– Any sugar mill worker
from any Pernambuco:
– When he says "sugar mill worker"
will have said everything.
– Whatever his name,
position or salary:
– By saying "sugar mill worker,"
he will have said it all.
11
– The sugar mill worker
in female form
– Is an empty sack
that stands on two feet.
– The female mill worker
is essentially a sack
– Of sugar without
any sugar inside.
– The sugar mill worker
in female form
– Is a sack that cannot
conserve or contain,
– She's a sack made
just to be emptied
– Of other sacks made in her
nobody knows how.
2
– The sugar mill worker
looks like us from a distance:
– Looking closer one sees
what sets him apart.
– The sugar mill worker
up close, to a sharp eye:
– Is in all respects human
but at half the price.
– He is missing nothing
that you and I have,
down to every detail,
like any normal man.
– He's the same, yet seems
to have been cut out
by the dull scissors
of a third-rate tailor.
7
– The sugar mill worker
looks like flesh and blood:
– Looking closer one sees
just what substance he is.
– The mill worker's body
when actually touched
– Proves to be different,
of a thinner consistence.
– Its texture is rough
and at the same time slack,
like cheap cotton cloth
or like cotton scraps.
– Like well-worn cloths
torn and tattered
to where, in our language
cloths become rags.
12
– The sugar mill worker
seems to be of our clay:
– Looking closer one sees
that his clay was grayer.
– The sugar mill worker
is shadowy and dim:
– He never learns to shine
like the sugar mill's steels.
– He can't even shine
like the duller copper
of the vats he stirs
in the smaller mills.
– He never even learns
to shine like the hoe handles
he dry polishes daily
with his sandpaper hand.
13
– The sugar mill worker
when he's at work:
– Everything he works with
feels heavy to him.
– It's as if his blood,
though thinner than ours,
weighed on his body
like juice when thick.
– Like sugarcane juice which,
after much cooking,
gets thicker and thicker
until it's molasses.
– The sugar mill worker
has a heavy rhythm:
– Like the final molasses
leaving the final vat.
9
– The sugar mill worker
yellowishly lives
among all that blue
which is always Pernambuco.
– Even against the yellow
of the canefield straw,
his yellow is still yellower,
for it reaches his morale.
– The sugar mill worker
is the quintessential yellow:
– Yellow in his body
and in his state of mind.
– This explains his calm,
which can appear as wisdom:
– But it's not calmness at all,
it's nothingness, inertia.
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| João Cabral de Melo Neto, 1935 |
