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A Poem
by Fernando Pessoa
translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Nemo

​Everything’s as sharp as a sunflower in my eyes.

I’m used to walking the roads
Looking left and right
And sometimes looking back ...
And what I see each moment
Is something I've never seen before,
And I do that really well ...
I can feel the wonder
A child would if, on being born,
He realized he was truly born ...
I feel reborn with every moment
To the constant newness of the world ...

I believe in the world as 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 
(Thinking is a sickness of the eyes)
But for us to look at it and be in accord.

I have no philosophy: I have senses ...
I speak of Nature not because I know what it is
But because I love it, and this is why I love it,
Because the one who loves never knows what he loves
Nor why he loves, nor what it means to love ...

To love is the greatest innocence,
And the only innocence is not to think ...
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  • Home
    • Poetry
    • Translations
    • Flash Fiction
    • Interviews
    • Essays
    • Photography
    • Fine Arts
  • Masthead
  • Archive
    • Exilé Sans Frontières
    • Fall 2022
    • Summer 2022
  • AR Tunes
  • Submissions
  • Contact