When Spring Returns

[tenaciousdin.livejournal.com]

When Spring returns
Perhaps I will no longer be in the world.
Today I wish I could think of Spring as a person
So that I could imagine her crying for me
When she sees that she's lost her only friend.
But Spring isn't even a thing:
It's a manner of speaking.
Not even the flowers or green leaves return.
There are new flowers, new green leaves.
There are new balmy days.
Nothing returns, nothing repeats, because everything is real.

-Fernando Pessoa, When Spring Returns

Comments

[123cait.livejournal.com]

I love this poem

[talullahred.livejournal.com]

Great translation... I think - I haven't read the original in a while but I'm digging it up. Anyway, the way the words roll out in English feels very much like Pessoa's own thing.