“And sometimes if I wantTo imagine I’m a lamb(Or a whole flockSpreading out all over the hillsideSo I can be a lot of happy things at the same time),It’s only because I feel what I write at sunset,Or when a cloud passes its hand over the lightAnd silence runs over the grass outside.When I sit and write poemsOr, walking along the roads or pathways,I write poems on the paper in my thoughts,I feel a staff in my handAnd see my silhouetteOn top of a knoll,Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas,Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock,With a silly smile like someone who doesn’t understand what somebody’s sayingBut tries to pretend they do.”
“And sometimes if I wantTo imagine I’m a lamb(Or a whole flockSpreading out all over the hillsideSo I can be a lot of happy things at the same time),It’s only because I feel what I write at sunset,Or when a cloud passes its hand over the lightAnd silence runs over the grass outside.When I sit and write poemsOr, walking along the roads or pathways,I write poems on the paper in my thoughts,I feel a staff in my handAnd see my silhouetteOn top of a knoll,Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas,Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock,With a silly smile like someone who doesn’t understand what somebody’s sayingBut tries to pretend they do.”
Alberto Caeiro
“Water’s water and that’s why it’s beautiful.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“Other times when I hear the wind blowI feel that just hearing the wind blow makes it worth being born.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“I’m in no hurry. What for?The sun and moon aren’t in a hurry: they’re right.Hurrying is believing people can get past their legs,Or that, jumping, they can land past their shadow.No; I don’t know how to hurry.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“I’m in no hurry: the sun and the moon aren’t, either.Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.If where I want to go is far away, I’m not there in an instant.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“I love flowers for being flowers, directly.And I love trees for being trees without my thought.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“That thing over there was more there than it’s there!Yes, sometimes I cry about the perfect body that doesn’t exist.But the perfect body is the bodiest body there can be,And the rest are the dreams men have,The myopia of someone who doesn’t look very much,”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“Nothing at all reminds us of something else when we pay attention to it.Each thing only reminds us of what it isAnd it’s only what nothing else is.The fact that it’s it separates it from every other thing.(Everything’s nothing without another thing that’s not it).”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“On a whitely cloudy day I get sad, almost afraid,And I begin to meditate about problems I make up.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“I’d like to have enough time and quietTo think about absolutely nothing,To not ever feel myself living,To only know myself in others’ eyes, reflected.”
Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro“Yes: I exist inside my body.I’m not carrying the sun and the moon in my pocket.I don’t want to conquer worlds because I slept badly,And I don’t want to eat the world for breakfast because I have a stomach.Indifferent?No: a son of the earth, who, if he jumps, it’s wrong,A moment in the air that’s not for us,And only happy when his feet hit the ground again,Pow! In reality where nothing’s missing!(6/20/1919)”
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