CABRAL, Amílcar

Regresso

Old mama, come and let’s listen

To the beat of the rain against the door

It’s a friendly beat

That pounds in my heart

The rain, our friend, old mama

The rain that hasn’t been falling this way

In a long time I heard that Cidade Velha

The entire island becomes a garden

In just a few days

I heard that the country is covered in green

The most beautiful colour

The colour of hope

That now, the soil really looks like Cape Verde

Peace has now replaced the storm

Come old mama, come

Regain your strengths and come to the door

The rain, our friend, sends its salvation

And can beat in my heart

Poetry

… No, Poetry …

Do not hide within the inscrutability of my soul

Do not run away from life itself.

Break the invisible bars of my prison,

Open wide the doors of my being

– Come out…

Come out to struggle (life is a struggle)

The men outside call for you,

And you, Poetry, you are also a Man.

Love everyone’s poetry,

– Love Men

Let your poems flow to every race, to all things.

Merge with me …

Oh Poetry,

Take my arms to embrace the World,

Give me your arms to embrace Life

I am my own Poetry.

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A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if, without complexes and without underestimating the importance of positive accretions from oppressor and other cultures, they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture