By Eva Dias Costa in Lessons in the Quiet — 23 Oct 2025

April/October

for W.B., honoured on his birthday
23 October 2025

I.

It was October, but they sang like April.
Their voices wavered – age inside the strain.
A red carnation pinned to each lapel.
A fado, then a harvest song – off-plane.

Born under watch, he crossed a darker path –
a child of islands, midnight, and escape.
He did not beg to speak. He knew the part
of one who learns which silences take shape.

A speech was made that smelled of ’seventy-four,
the slogans dusted, proudly out of key.
Then he rose – no flourish, nothing more,
only what the future still might need to be.

I wept. The old applauded with their care.
He named no foes. He only asked we care.

II.

He held his ground. I thought it marked delay.
Too calm, I said. Too slow to take a side.
The truths he knew would not perform or sway,
and did not ask for mine to coincide.

I spoke too much. I argued what I could.
He listened, and returned no clear defence.
He left the air intact, the posture good –
as if restraint itself were eloquence.

He taught without correction, point, or claim.
I entered ready to resist or teach.
He made no case. He only said a name
and let its weight go further than my reach.

I wept because he asked for nothing back.
And now I see the things I used to lack.

III.

I was not ready, but I heard him still.
The room held something – gravity, or pace.
No drama marked his tone. No sharpened will.
Just care, composed and measured into place.

He asked for nothing. What he gave was whole –
a hope without instruction, dim but sure.
It made no sense. The moment simply turned –
a steady, unprovoked, unbending cure.

He said a name. I almost missed its weight.
It settled differently than I had guessed.
No perfect line. No recompense. Just fate –
the kind that leaves a question, not a crest.

He meant it all. The ground held, more or less.