Ana Valentina Angelo
Seagulls... Sky... Sea...
Under the skies of Figueira
Seagulls in the sky and on the sand
From my window, on the eighth floor, I hear wings flapping very close; I’m scared! Ah… it’s you, seagull, flirting with me. You go up … and up. Then you stop and release yourself in the wind, flat … flat as a feather. Like a lightning bolt, it cuts the air and lands elegantly in the immensity of white sand at Praia da Claridade, among so many other sisters … hundreds!
Seagulls and fishing boat
What a spectacle for non-coastal people, travelers like me! In the evening, there they go, noisy, to welcome the fishing boats that arrive from the sea. It is a real harassment. The boat slowly enters the Mondego River, towards the port, under the hunting cries of a number of dancing gulls, whirling around the vessel’s hull.
¹Seagulls, so many, so many
Fernando Pessoa
The gulls, so many, so many, They fly on the river to the sea … Also without wanting to enchant, You don’t even have to fly.
Night does not delay
Panorama
The scene is ready for the flight of seagulls: the dusk is exuberant and the waves are calm; the imposing tower displays the seventieth clock of Praia da Claridade; the austerity of the Santa Catarina Fort contrasts with the colorful Marina, which, like a showcase, exposes models and colors of its boats moored at the pier, embraced by the jetties, in the voluminous current of the mouth of the Mondego, a genuinely Portuguese river, which casts its waters in the Atlantic.
The Poet of the Poets sings the Mondego
²Sweet and clear Mondego waters
Luiz Vaz de Camões
Sweet and clear Mondego waters,
Sweet rest from my memory,
Where the long and pierced hope
Long time after you brought me blind,
I rely on you, si; but I don’t deny
Let the long memory reach me,
Let me not make you change,
But the longer I stretch, the closer I get Fortuna may well use this instrument
From the soul to take by new and strange land,
Offered to the remote sea, to the wind.
But the soul that accompanies you from here,
In the wings of the slight thought
For you, waters, fly and bathe in you ”
To you who accompanies us in this column, take care and until our next contact.
Our thanks to the Health Professionals of the world for their courage and dedication in this difficult time of the pandemic.
