Just occasionally you take a familiar path in a familiar space and spot something that you have never seen before even though it has been there a long time. And such was the case last week with ‘A pedra de amarrar do burro’, the tying stone of the donkey in Alcoutim.

And it wasn’t just the tying stone we discovered, there was also poetry. The poet is Teresa Rita Lopes born of Faro and now of Lisbon. She is also a playwright, literary professor, director of the Institute of Studies on Modernism and one of the founders of the New University of Lisbon.  Unfortunately though she isn’t one of the 28 Portuguese poets showcased in Richard Zenith’s new bilingual anthology, so the translation below is a combination of Google Translate and myself. I apologise now if through my lack of knowledge and understanding of Portuguese I have missed the nuances of this lovely poem.

I adore donkeys and so I certainly agree with Teresa that they add to the beauty of the Algarvian hills unlike motor cars. However having said that I am very aware we’d never get to Alcoutim if we had to travel by donkey, and the car is certainly easier for the locals too.

We made other new discoveries in Alcoutim last week and so I will be back again soon to share more. For now though let me encourage you to go exploring yourself. Regular readers may have spotted my title was six and that it is a Saturday, and so yes this is my Portuguese entry this week for Cate’s Six Word Saturday. Go on have an explore you never know what you might discover.