extracts from: "The Keeper of Sheep" and other writings by Fernando Pessoa
When I look, I see clear as a sunflower.
I'm always walking the roads
Looking right and left,
And sometimes looking behind . . .
And what I see every second
Is something I've never seen before,
And I know how to do this very well . . .
I know how to have the essential astonishment
That a child would have if it could really see
It was being born when it was being born . . .
I feel myself being born in each moment,
In the eternal newness of the world . . .
I believe in the world like I believe in a marigold,
Because I see it. But I don't think about it
Because to think is to not understand . . .
The world wasn't made for us to think about
(To think is to be sick in the eyes)
But for us to see and agree with . . .
I don't have a philosophy: I have senses . . .
If I talk about Nature, it's not because I know what it is,
But because I love it, and that's why I love it,
Because when you love you never know what you love,
Or why you love, or what love is . . .
Loving is eternal innocence,
And the only innocence is not thinking . . .
~
If I could crush the whole earth
And be able to feel its taste,
Happier in a moment I'd be.
But every now and again we need to be unhappy
So we can be natural...
Not everything is sunny days,
And rain, when long overdue, is much needed.
For this reason I take unhappiness with happiness,
Naturally, like one who is not surprised to find
Mountains and planes
Rock cliffs and grass...
What is needed is to be able to be natural and calm
Both in happiness and unhappiness,
To feel like one looks,
To think like one walks,
And when the time to die comes,
To remember that the day also dies,
And that the sunset is beautiful
And beautiful is the night that stays behind...
That is how it is and shall be...
~
The startling reality of things
Is my discovery every single day.
Every thing is what it is,
And it's hard to explain to anyone
how much this delights me
And suffices me.
To be whole, it is enough
simply to exist
When I look, I see clear as a sunflower.
I'm always walking the roads
Looking right and left,
And sometimes looking behind . . .
And what I see every second
Is something I've never seen before,
And I know how to do this very well . . .
I know how to have the essential astonishment
That a child would have if it could really see
It was being born when it was being born . . .
I feel myself being born in each moment,
In the eternal newness of the world . . .
I believe in the world like I believe in a marigold,
Because I see it. But I don't think about it
Because to think is to not understand . . .
The world wasn't made for us to think about
(To think is to be sick in the eyes)
But for us to see and agree with . . .
I don't have a philosophy: I have senses . . .
If I talk about Nature, it's not because I know what it is,
But because I love it, and that's why I love it,
Because when you love you never know what you love,
Or why you love, or what love is . . .
Loving is eternal innocence,
And the only innocence is not thinking . . .
~
If I could crush the whole earth
And be able to feel its taste,
Happier in a moment I'd be.
But every now and again we need to be unhappy
So we can be natural...
Not everything is sunny days,
And rain, when long overdue, is much needed.
For this reason I take unhappiness with happiness,
Naturally, like one who is not surprised to find
Mountains and planes
Rock cliffs and grass...
What is needed is to be able to be natural and calm
Both in happiness and unhappiness,
To feel like one looks,
To think like one walks,
And when the time to die comes,
To remember that the day also dies,
And that the sunset is beautiful
And beautiful is the night that stays behind...
That is how it is and shall be...
~
The startling reality of things
Is my discovery every single day.
Every thing is what it is,
And it's hard to explain to anyone
how much this delights me
And suffices me.
To be whole, it is enough
simply to exist
See also The Book of Disquiet and Poems of Fernando Pessoa
(Wild Rose - Bethicketted)
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