terça-feira, 3 de agosto de 2010

One "CLICK" a Day..., Goat Trail / Caminho de Cabras

 

I often wonder how is that the old shepherd still manages to remain so with that old way of earning a living and to draw from it his livelihood.


He´s almost centenary, bent by time and the weight of life but I see him every afternoon getting out of the old abandoned windmill on the road accompanied by the goats that are now his only family, and walk with them the harsh ways of the hill where he leads them to graze.

Where they go he will follow them for long and hard steep rails.

Rain or shine I watch from afar his sunburned face, wrinkled and inrregular like those tracks that he has traveled in life.

I know that he might not have much time. I noticed that he keeps getting farther from the herd and it must be quite hard to follow them due to his old age.

The powerful cars pass by this ludicrous group as far away as possible from the comforts and confusions of this era and the powerful engines seem to emit noise of a giant sputum who despises everyone who stubbornly keeps herding a flock.

Once this hill was a fertile agricultural area spotted with fields of barley and wheat. Planted and harvested the people ate bread that was almost the only substantial food but with the taste of new life and sweat.
Things had meaning...

Now this is just a path, a shortcut out of the city where the ground was torn to build roads and all crops were burned in the name of progress.

Progress ?..............

Today I have not seen the shepherd ...

Diogo Carvalho © Copyright.

Costumo perguntar-me com frequência como é que o velho pastor ainda consegue manter-se com aquela tão antigo modo de ganhar a vida e daí extrair o seu sustento.


É quase centenário,torto pelo tempo e pelo peso da vida no entanto vejo-o todas as tardes a sair de velho moinho abandonado à beira da estrada acompanhado pelas cabras que agora são a sua única família e a trilhar com estas os duros caminhos da serra onde as leva a pastar.

Aonde elas vão ele acompanha por muito duros ou ingremes que sejam os trilhos.

Chova ou faça sol observo ao longe o seu rosto queimado pelo sol,enrugado e inrregular como aqueles trilhos que ele tem percorrido na vida.

Sei que talvez não lhe reste muito tempo pois reparei que ele vai ficando cada vez mais distante das cabritas e já lhe deve ser muito difícil acompanhar o rebanho derivado à sua idade avançada.

Os potentes carros passam por este grupo caricato tão afastado dos confortos e confusões desta era e os potentes motores parecem emitir o ruído de um gigantesco escarro que despreza todo aquele que teimosamente ainda pastoreia o seu rebanho.

Outrora esta era uma zona agrícola fértil em campos pintalgados de cevada e trigo onde se plantava,colhia e se comia o pão que era quase o único alimento substancial mas que tinha aquele gosto antigo a vida e a suor.
As coisas tinham significado...

Agora este é apenas um trilho, um atalho fora da cidade onde o chão foi rasgado para construir estradas e todas as searas foram queimadas em nome do progresso.

Progresso ?..............

Hoje não vi o pastor ...

Diogo Carvalho © Copyright.

bonequinhoda.bic81@gmail.com

6 comentários:

  1. é brutal ver estes contrastes de realidades: uma zona rural invadida por uma estrada, onde passam carros e mais carros....

    nao viste o pastor?
    se calhar estava a nas suas colheitas...do farmville!! Também ele ficou fã deste evoluir dos tempos! :)
    as costas agradecem, porque nunca mais sofreu da ciática...

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  2. Xaninha o Farmville é um jogo para panisgas,lol.
    O pastor acho que se foi desta para melhor,a história ficou um bocado dramática e etérea mas foi o meu modo de criticar a falta de ajuda "total" a estas pessoas que aindam mantem profissões milenares como o pastoreio de cabras e ovelhas.
    Enfim havia muito para dizer mas isso dava para a um post.

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  3. There's a Chinese folks about a shepherd,whicj my mother taught me to sing when I was a child. It's about a young shepherd boy telling a story about a beautiful shepherd girl, and how much he wants to be a little lamb, sitting near her, wishing to be wiped tenderly by her. (Ok this might sound a little weird, but you know how shepherds all have some sort of wipe or stick for hurling,right:D).The sound is beautiful, I will get it recorded one day and put in on Youtube :P

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  4. suni,no it doesn´t sound weird at all, you are talking to a Portuguese remember ?!
    My mind works much close to a person from the East, so i understand the inner meaning of the song you´ve mentioned.
    I guess i was Chinese in another lifetime.
    You have a great sense of humor little suni !
    :)

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  5. __Progress is degradation. The degrading of that that was, in favor of that that is not; in a sense, then, 'progress' and 'degradation,' are synonyms. My view, I, forever the contrary.
    __Though I understand the necessity of
    progress, we've lost our honor of the past... but this shepherd did not! _m

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  6. Magyar-I believe in progress, i do,i really do, but...Man, why is this so hard to explain ???
    Let me put it this way, Portugal was once a rural country,nevertheless slowly but surely rurality died little by little,so we became exporters of food instesd of producing our own good,what is somethigh really idiotic when we have (HAD) a country so rich in wholesome soil,potable water and farland...so little by little i´ve been watching the slow creeping death of people like this old goat sheperd who have nothing but their dignity, and absolutely no help from the country itself.
    There is also a lot of tradition that´s been lost forever,much like you guys with the Native Americans. So, it´s not that this sheperd doesn´t want help, it´s just that my country forsaken him like many others after a lifetime of hard work for a handfull of Euros from greedy corrupt polititians.

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