Vagabond Heart
A poem
our apotheosis aquamarine
to terrain of our dreams
in song
we house lost hearts
where we find legs
to dance
stroll bones in sand
fall a soft place
before gravitational fall
of time pulling
tide like summer’s fairness
sweeping us back adrift
Notes: Inspired by a lovely, melancholic ditty by Gal Costa & Caetano Veloso’s “Coração Vagabundo” (Vagabond Heart) from their album Domingo. Veloso is one of Brazil’s most celebrated musicians and while he is most famous for spearheading tropicália along with Gal Costa (and Gilberto Gill), they did a number of bossa nova songs together and separately.
The lyrics seem to be a response to “Girl from Ipanema”, already reflecting the end of bossa nova along with artistic freedoms at the beginning of dictatorship.
Written for the July Summer Music Challenge where I wrote a poem or story about bossa nova for 31 days. See below for all entries including Terry Barr’s 8 brilliant memoirs about summer and music:
