A. B. Carleial Consulting

I Remember

A. B. Carleial (2007-2008).

----   I   ----

Can you remember

the day your Dad came home

and told your Mom

the Germans had surrendered?

Perhaps my Mom had heard the news before

from someone else, and on the radio, more.

If that was so, I’m sure she smiled again

on hearing it from Dad, and said to him:

“Thank God for this! Let’s pray the war will end!”

Can you remember?

Our homeland spared! So much for which to thank!

Our soldiers coming home immediately!

(Except for those that we’d no longer see:

four hundred left in graves in Italy,

plus fifty-one – the number of our dead,

not counting those on ships that U-boats sank –

the drop of blood Brazil had shed into

the sea incarnadine the world had bled.)

Can you remember?

An end to strife! Our dreams were coming true!

Democracy for us could well ensue!

Though war raged on, elsewhere, in distant lands,

the news that May made people clap their hands

and shout with joy, in hope that peace would spread.

Can you remember?

I will be frank: my memory is blank

concerning world events, both glad and sad,

that Nineteen Forty-Five brought through November.

Though I was home that day with Mom and Dad

in Ruy Barbosa, a small town in Bahia,

all through that time I was in Mother’s womb,

hence genitus, non natus, in my shroud,

and wisely stayed in hiding from that war

as long as Mom would bear. I could not hear

the blasts of nuclear bombs later that year

that were so loud and put up such a cloud

(some scientists and generals were proud!)

the earth entire was struck with awe and fear

of future wars that fate might have in store.

----   II   ----

Can you remember

the day you had your birthday number four?

Myself, I spent my fifth Sixth of December

in Urandi, an even smaller town

than Ruy Barbosa, where we’d lived before.

We’d moved there when my first sister was born.

My Father supervised railroad construction,

as ties and rails were laid from Urandi

south into Minas, and north, in Bahia,

winding away across Saco da Onça,

to Caculé, Brumado, and the sea…

My Mom cared  for the home  Dad’s  job provided –

the house, a yard, a garden that she loved,

and a gazebo with small trees beside it.

We were not rich, but we had our prestige!

I had a tricycle and a few toys,

I had a pedaled jeep that I could drive

and made the envy of the other boys

when I turned four and started on to five.

All this I’d have forgotten long ago –

the party in the yard, the fun, the jeep –

but that old photos my folks thought to keep

bring back a dim remembrance it was so.

And yet, the saddest moment of that day

claimed for itself a homestead in my mind

wherein it stayed, and never went away.

(My memory is kind to thoughts unpleasant!)

I remember… I got a birthday present,

a shiny locomotive made of steel,

all painted in bright colors, red and green,

a little man on board – the engineer –

a little rubber tire on every wheel.

It was the loveliest toy I’d ever seen.

No other toy I'd ever held as dear.

Except for size and weight, it looked so real

I thought it hid a mystery inside.

I mused on how each part fit with the rest,

and deemed whatever makers schemed to hide

would be revealed by a dismantling test.



With makeshift tools from Mom’s sewing machine,

somehow, I got its tiny rivets loose,

and working with what seemed, at first, great art,

released both tender wagon and caboose,

then split the engine base and sides apart.

The wheels fell off! There was nothing within!

The emptiness inside was a surprise.

That’s how I learned – so much to my chagrin –

that in a broken toy there is no heart.

And then I saw how foolish and unwise

my quest to reach its secret parts had been,

for when I tried to reconstruct my train

it turned out that all efforts were in vain.

O fateful choice! Why could I not enjoy

my brand new favorite toy from day to day

and be content, like any other boy,

to push it back and forth in normal play?

Why did I choose, instead, investigation?

What tree of knowledge led my hands astray?

Can paradise abide where there’s temptation?

Nowhere to hide, no other child to blame,

I was alone and helpless in my shame.

For such mischief, what excuse could be found?

I feared my Father’s wrath. But, above all,

I felt a surge of sadness without bound,

which made me wail and cry against a wall,

thereby bringing attention to my deed.

Such was my plight my parents saw no need

for chastisement beyond my bitter loss.

The locomotive could be fixed – and was,

in time, by an adult – but not for me.

Brief as a comet, it had ceased to be.

So was my grief – I mean, equally brief –

although its memory would linger on.

I was resigned: because of what I’d done,

some other child would play with my toot-toots.

----   III   ----

The year that followed had its own pursuits,

such as learning to read all by myself

at home – so goes the myth – with comic books

(Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse,

and Westerns like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers)

plus anything in print found in the house.

Before I started school, my education

began with Mom and Dad and observation.

At times I found the world was quite amazing.

The radio gave the news. Reporter Esso:

“Americans with guns have started chasing

the Communists who took flight from the shore

and sought refuge in hills north of Kaé-Song!”

I had not heard of Communists before.

I recall that when I heard this, I thought

they were a tribe of Indian braves that fought

with bows and arrows, somewhere in the West,

against cowboys with rifles and the rest.

I was better informed on local matters

than on distant Korea. Conversation

of family with friends caught my attention.

In politics and football, consternation:

“The World Cup’s final game was lost in Rio!”

“Elections put old Vargas back in power!”

“Poor Eduardo Gomes, twice defeated!”

“Dashed hopes that he would be our Eisenhower!”

Indeed! Our people made their fateful choice

within a year of my having made mine.

The people’s choice – made ere I had a voice –

was to recall a charming old dictator

again to head the state, and thus decline

the chance to claim a place among great nations

in their lifetime. As to the choice I made –

a career in research and engineering –

dismantling locomotives, spacecraft, rockets,

the universe itself, through its equations,

to put them back together my own way –

it has taught me to probe things without fearing

discovery of truth beyond sensations

and steered excessive wealth far from my pockets

to keep me friends with labor to this day.

Prometheus, not Apollon, was my kin.

Praise the true God that in His dispensation

an honest search for knowledge is no sin!

Rights to all text and poems on these pages are reserved by the author.

Direitos a todo texto e poemas destas páginas são reservados pelo autor.