“I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.”
― E.B. White, The Points Of My Compass
Porto, June 2018
Month: June 2018
A haze
I have in me like a haze
Which holds and which is nothing
A nostalgia for nothing at all,
The desire for something vague.
I’m wrapped by it
As by a fog, and I see
The final star shining
Above the stub in my ashtray.
I smoked my life. How uncertain
All I saw or read! All
The world is a great open book
That smiles at me in an unknown tongue
Tenho em mim como uma bruma
Que nada é nem contém
A saudade de coisa nenhuma,
O desejo de qualquer bem.
Sou envolvido por ela
Como por um nevoeiro
E vejo luzir a última estrela
Por cima da ponta do meu cinzeiro
Fumei a vida. Que incerto
Tudo quanto vi ou li!
E todo o mundo é um grande livro aberto
Que em ignorada língua me sorri.
Monday poetry comes on Wednesday because Fernando Pessoa was born on this day in Lisbon 130 years ago.
Translation: 1998, Richard Zenith
Photo: crossing back to Porto, May 2018
Little things
Now, dear, it isn’t the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
That count the most in the summing up of life at the end of the day.
But it is the doing of old things,
Small acts that are just and right;
And doing them over and over again, no matter what others say;
In smiling at fate, when you want to cry, and in keeping at work when
you want to play—
Dear, those are the things that count.
And, dear, it isn’t the new ways
Where the wonder-seekers crowd
That lead us into the land of content, or help us to find our own.
But it is keeping to true ways,
Though the music is not so loud,
And there may be many a shadowed spot where we journey along
alone;
In flinging a prayer at the face of fear, and in changing into a song a
groan—
Dear, these are the things that count.
My dear, it isn’t the loud part
Of creeds that are pleasing to God,
Not the chant of a prayer, or the hum of a hymn, or a jubilant shout or
song.
But it is the beautiful proud part
Of walking with feet faith-shod;
And in loving, loving, loving through all, no matter how things go
wrong;
In trusting ever, though dark the day, and in keeping your hope when
the way seems long—
Dear, these are the things that count.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The Things that Count
Stories from A Closet of Errors 