Red Green and Gold

I'm the last surrogate writer of many illustrious souls

I carry in me the Red Green and Gold flag of a nation

Your courage lingers in my last words of illumination

While thy blood in my veins storms our heart with hope

We write these words at the last stand before it ends

We will break them free like tears in the falling rain

We hear those who came before us cringing and wailing

We let words storm our gates and the legion ascends

They flock like swallows against a memory of winter snow

A silent whisper of fading wings vibrating like a rainbow

Calling forlorn names known to them and them alone

From when we stood on the muddy banks of the Yarmouk

Back then we were many more haunting the Gadarenes

Once a mighty band of brothers now alone among the few

We have sailed to the western shores of old Lusitania

Dark blue waters that became the sky to the Atlantians

We were there with Ulysses when he founded Olissipo

We fought alongside Viriatus against the roman gods

We prayed to no god but the god of a thousand faces

The forsaken tribe became a renowned legion-slayer

We stood with the First King when he founded Portucale

Shoulder to shoulder with Afonso the mightiest of men

We stood our ground up on the Atoleiros hill battlefield

Leading the bravest ragged few down the muddy slopes

Afterward we saw the King's colors flying over Aljubarrota

Legend says how God himself fought at our side that day

We saw no god laying waste to the enemy heavy cavalry

Every man a legion and on their faces Viriatus' fiery eyes

Centuries passed and back to the sea we went with Dias

And Gama and Cabral to Africa to India and the Americas

Sailed across the world with Magellan never falling off

Into the Abyss we found brand new worlds within our world

Saw the last days and downfall of the Portuguese Empire

As we fought away Bonapartes' Great Army and Generals

Junot and Soult and Massena and one-hand Henry Loison

All these great men powerless against the alma lusitana

Later by a twist of fate our legions rushed to rescue France

From the claws of the feral invader and again we were heroes

We stood with Milhões as he fired his machinegun in La Lys

Holding his ground against a full division to cover our retreat

We know how only the dead will one day see the end of war

And during the twentieth century we fought too many lost

battles In Angola and Mozambique and even in the Far-East

Until the revolution came with red carnations in April 1974

Four years later in August we were reborn and if after we die,

-  As Fernando Pessoa wrote  -  someone writes our biography

There's nothing easier. We've only two dates - one for our birth

The other for our death  -  In between one thing and the other

- All days are ours!

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"We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us."― Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas