In This World Where We Forget - Fernando Pessoa

In this world where we forget

we are shadows of who we are,

and the true expressions we form

in that other where, souls, we live,

are here grimaces and signs.

All is night and confusion

that exists among us here:

projections, smoke scattered

from the fire whose glow is hidden

when we look at what life gives.

But one or another, gazing

closely for a moment,

can see in the shifting shadows

the intent in the other world

of the expression that makes them live.

And then they find the meaning

of what here is merely a grimace,

and their intuitive gaze

returns to their body, lost,

imagined, understood.

Shadow of the yearning body,

it pretends it feels the tie

that binds it to the marvellous

truth that hurled it, anxious,

to the floor of space and time.

---

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Ricardo Reis / Alberto Caeiro / Álvaro de Campos) (1888 - 1935) Portugal

Translated by A.S. Kline

Source: Poetry in Translation