To start with, saudade has been translated into English as to miss. But this simple verb cannot cover the inherent meanings of a word with the strength of all language’s forms: verb, noun, and adjective all succumb to the larger feeling of saudade.
To have saudades (the verb, ter saudades), is the act of feeling, it’s to long for something, to remember or be remembered, to be needed or to need, to miss or to be missed. And saudade is a feminine word often used in the plural to designate the state of missing someone or something, a lifetime, a memory. You cannot just have saudades of someone. It covers the feeling of missing that which never was, the All and the Nothing, all that no longer is, that could have been, that passed away, those silences that we have lost or no longer see or experience.
One does not underestimate the word by applying it to every single side of life. Because saudade is inherent in us, the fact of being Brazilian and speak Portuguese forces us to have saudades. And we have them without noticing, and without worrying about the allied feelings: the pain, the sadness, the loneliness, the suffering, the nostalgia.
Aline Martins - Paranapiacaba-Brazil- Winter 2008
People say: if you have memories, you will never die of loneliness
I say: if you see the world through the heart´s eyes,
You will live to feel, doesn´t matter what.
And in this incessant dialogue between reason, feeling and heart …
lives a word, dear by some, for others … not much.
Saudade,
mysterious word, made up of much more than letters and feelings.
Did the person who invented Saudade know how many feelings
existed in a simple word?
Saudade,
Does saudades exist to rhyme with hope, or perhaps happiness?
…If Saudade really existed to walk along happiness, it wouldn´t be Saudade, it would be reality.
Saudade,
Does not reflect the sunset without you.
Does not reflect our laughter, or our endless conversations through the night.
Does not reflect the empty house, nor reflects my dreams.
Saudade,
Ungrateful word, which describes nothing,
Does not speak of tenderness, does not speak of care, does not talk about you …
Does not reflect your smile, not even your face, how you feel or what you see.
Saudade,
Simple word, sometimes in the plural, deserved a meaning for each consonant and vowel,
so we could describe its infinite feelings, and explanations, which sometimes hurt me so bad.
Saudade,
I prefer thinking it rhymes with love, dreaming, or returning
Or
Is it an eternal longing?
Aline Saudades Martins
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