When tendernessseems tired at last of its offices and sleep, the most uncertain vessel,still delays, when blue bursts fromyour eyes and searchesmine for steady seamanship, then it is I speak to you of wordsdesolate, derelict,transfixed by silence. — Eugénio de Andrade, “Silence,” Forbidden Words: Selected Poetry of Eugénio de Andrade. (New Directions, 2003)
And I find a happiness in the fact of accepting —In the sublimely scientific and difficult fact of accepting the inevitable natural. ― Fernando Pessoa, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro. (Shearsman Books October 1, 2007) Originally published September 20th 1957.
If, when the spring comes,I am already dead,The flowers will flower in the same mannerAnd the trees will be no less green than last spring.Reality doesn’t need me. I feel great joyTo think that my death hasn’t the slightest importance. If I knew that I would die tomorrowAnd spring was due to arrive the day… Continue reading Fernando Pessoa
HER FINGERS TOYED ABSENTLY WITH HER RINGS There are fallen angels in the way you look And great bridges over silent streams at your smile.Your gestures are a lonely princess dreaming over a book At a window over a lake, on some distant isle. If I were to stretch my hand and touch yours that would be … Continue reading Fernando Pessoa
I’d woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics, 2002)
A breath of music or of a dream, of something that would make me almost feel, something that would make me not think. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics, 2002)
We are two abysses—a well staring at the sky. — Fernando Pessoa
We create what we don’t haveBecause we’re sorry it’s missing,And whatever we long to seeIs what we end up seeing. — Fernando Pessoa, from “[The beautiful, wondrous fable],” 9 June 1934, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems, ed. & trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin Classics, 2006)
The worst pain … isn’t the pain you feel at the time, it’s the pain you feel later on when there’s nothing you can do about it, They say that time heals all wounds, But we never live long enough to test that theory … ― José Saramago, The Cave. (Mariner Books; Reprint edition October… Continue reading José Saramago
And my heart is a little larger than the entire universe. — Álvaro de Campos, from “[I got off the train],” 4 July 1934, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, ed. & trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin Classics, 2006)
The Vale of Soul-Making 