20 April 2006

If I Die Young - Alberto Caeiro

IF I DIE YOUNG,
Without ever publishing a book,
Without seeing how my poems look in print,
If someone wants to agitate for my cause,
I hope they do not agitate.
If it happens like that, it happens right.

Even if my poems are never printed,
They have their beauty in them, if they are beautiful.
But they can't be beautiful and stay unprinted,
Because the roots may be under the earth
But flowers bloom in the air free and easy to see.
It has to be that way. Nothing can prevent it.

If I die very young, hear this:
I was never anything but a kid playing.
I was a heathen like the sun and the water,
Of that universal religion wich only men doesn't have.
I was happy because I did not ask for anything at all,
Or tried to find anything,
And I didn't think there was any more explanation
Than that the word explanation having no meaning at all.

I didn't want anything but to be in the sun or in the rain -
In the sun when there was sun
And in the rain when it was raining
(And never the opposite),
Feel heat and cold and wind,
And going no farther than that.

One time I fell in love, I thought they would love me,
But I was not loved.
I was not loved for one main reason -
I did not have to be.

I consoled myself by going back to the sun and rain,
And sitting at the door of my hous again.
The fields are not as green for people in love
As for those who are not.
To feel is to be distracted.

Alberto Caeiro

1 Comments:

Blogger Umguy said...

Thank you for that. Very nice.

4/20/2006 6:27 PM  

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