On Translation

There is a word in Portuguese — *saudade* — that I carry like a stone in a coat pocket, rubbing its edges smooth with my thumb. I could give it to you as: *longing*, or *the ache of what is absent*, but already it has lost its weight, the particular shape of its grief. The translator kneels before two rivers, cups water in both hands, walks slowly — knowing that what arrives in the new mouth is cousin to the source, not the source itself. Even now, telling you this, I am translating — finding the face of a feeling, dressing it in the only clothes I own.