The ‘Bem-ti-vi’ always makes me smile.

Around the size of the English blackbird this handsome creature can to seen all over Brazil, in the cities (where it keeps well away from humans) and in all rural areas.

He has two calls, the first is just like a prolonged descending toot on a Swannee-whistle. The other is so loud, and either so appealing or torturing (depending on your point of view as it will often be repeated dozens of times), that it has made the bird a living legend.

The same sort of anonymous Brazilian genius that named the nether part of the skimpiest bikinis dental floss, and beija-flor (kiss-the-flowers) for the humming bird, came up with Bem-ti-vi for him, exactly like his call; it means ‘I can see you!’

In Pursuit of Grace

As the drenched sugar cane and hibiscus

steam in the silence following this morning’s deluge

I sit in the shade of the cool veranda to reflect

on the enigmatic shifts from shame to grace.

But one of the house maids has come:

she swishes around the tiles, a towel

at her feet, erratically shuffling

and sopping at the plethora of puddles.

Shamelessly and gaily she sings out loud

and with a skilful,  prehensile toe

lifts the wad to hand,  wrings

the miscreant water into her slop bucket:

It was she disturbed the gold and jet-black

‘Bem-ti-vi’  who scoots from his garden bower,

squats on the roma tree and with his nasal,

Pintagus sulphuratus twang warbles

“I can see you; I can see!”   continuously!

And now the one-eyed,  other maid has joined

the detail!  They shout and laugh, criss-crossing

here and there, swaying with elegance and grace.

They’ve gone at last – as the Heavens re-open!

There’ll be no peace: I’d best accept

it all in goodly grace and quietly wait

to watch my poetic aspirations dissipate.

Salvador. Brazil ‘84/’09.

Pintagus sulphuratus …The Latin name for the species

Roma …The pomegranite tree.

There’s a small bar in the Santo Antonio region of Belo Horizonte belonging to Edinho and Heloísa who some years back found a fledgling bird in the street and brought him up with huge quantities of Tender Loving Care. Because of this they became unlikely national TV stars on ‘Globo’.

They named their bar-pet Zé. And Zé was free to come and go. He stayed for a number of years and got beaten-up a few times by the local birds who obviously sensed there was something odd about him. Anyway to crown this extraordinary saga Edinho commissioned a tattoo which he is very proud to display.

And Edinho’s tattoo.