"Birds spurting from the tall trees
Fall on the grass like loose stones,
The golden and the white butterflies,
With petal-like wings, throb
Among flowers and water.
And the cicadas clinging to trunks
Rehearse in the shade their resonant resins.

When a human form ventures in,
Birds and butterflies take wing,

And the opening flower and the dead leaf,
Both frightened, wait
Until eveery human trace vanishes
On the sands of the way.

The happy days are among the trees, like birds;
They travel in the clouds,
They flow in the water,
They vanish into the sand."
Cecília Meirelles