40 – “I bring to the Universe a new Universe”*
Friday, September 30th, 2011* From “The Keeper of Sheep, XLVI” by Fernando Pessoa writing as Alberto Caeiro.
In this way or that way,
As it may happen or not happen,
Sometimes succeeding in saying what I think
And at other times saying it badly and with things mixed in,
I keep writing my poems, inadvertently,
As if writing were not something requiring action,
As if writing were something that happens to me
In the same way that the sun reaches me from outside.
I try to say what I feel
Without thinking about what I feel.
I try to place words right next to my idea
So that I won’t need a corridor
Of thought leading to words.
I don’t always manage to feel what I know I should feel.
Only very slowly does my thought swim across the river, Weighed down as it is by the suit men forced it to wear. I try to shed what I’ve learned,
I try to forget the way I was taught to remember,
To scrape off the paint that was painted on my senses,
To uncrate my true emotions,
To step out of all my wrapping and be myself – not Alberto Caeiro
But a human animal created by Nature.
That’s how I write, wanting to feel Nature not even as a man but merely as someone who feels Nature.
That’s how I write, sometimes well, sometimes badly, sometimes saying just what I want to say,
Sometimes getting it wrong,
Falling down one moment and getting up the next,
But always continuing on my way like a stubborn blind man.
Even so, I’m somebody.
I’m the Discoverer of Nature.
I’m the Argonaut of true sensations.
I bring to the Universe a new Universe,
Because I bring to the Universe its own self.
This is what I feel and write,
Perfectly aware and clearly seeing
That it’s five o’clock in the morning
And that the sun, although it still hasn’t raised its face
Over the wall of the horizon,
Is already showing the tips of its fingers
Gripping the top of the wall
Of the horizon sprinkled with low hills.
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