durante tanto tiempo he retenido al ángel

"Durante tanto tiempo he retenido al ángel
que se  me ha vuelto pobre entre las manos.
Se ha ido haciendo pequeño mientras yo crecía:
y ha llegado un momento en que yo era el consuelo,
y él sólo una súplica que se alza con temblor.

Le he dejado entonces que se fuera a su cielo.
Me ha dejado las cosas de las que ya se ha ido.
Ha aprendido a volar, y yo entiendo la vida.
Y ahora, poco a poco, nos hemos conocido..."

Para festejarme, 1899

19

El sol grande en la era
tal vez sea el remedio...
No quiero quien me quiera,
que me amen me da tedio.

Me basta el beso intacto
que da la luz luciendo
y el amor libre, abstracto,
de un campo floreciendo.

El resto es gente y alma:
complica y habla, ve.
Me quita el sueño y calma
y nunca lo que es sé.

Del Cancionero - Fernando Pessoa

the sand martin

Thou hermit haunter of the lonely glen
And common wild and heath—the desolate face
Of rude waste landscapes far away from men
Where frequent quarries give thee dwelling place,
With strangest taste and labour undeterred
Drilling small holes along the quarry’s side,
More like the haunts of vermin than a bird
And seldom by the nesting boy descried—
I’ve seen thee far away from all thy tribe
Flirting about the unfrequented sky
And felt a feeling that I can’t describe
Of lone seclusion and a hermit joy
To see thee circle round nor go beyond
That lone heath and its melancholy pond.

Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs