—Fernando Pessoa
You hurry but you are late
to every party and dinner date,
so naturally they begin without you.
Like a pale leaf through the window,
you make your entrance secretly.
Now you can shine in the corner
as quietly as any leaf,
rarely speaking and then in puzzles;
in English when they are Spanish,
in cliff-edge when they are hanging.
They are the size of what they see,
swimming in their vocabularies
of desire and principal interest.
You’re a bird too young to fly,
a map without its pink and salmon.
You’re so late you arrive on time,
and later slip out unnoticed,
not even a smudge on your glass.
They never knew what passed them.
You walk to the absolute corner,
where the roof of the sky
meets the limit of the eye
and a breath lasts a lifetime.
you’re the size of what you see.
The sky is the size of the sky,
and the sun is just the sun.
But a tree is the size of the flame
you hold in your fingers.
What shirt to wear to eternity
and tomorrow to dinner?
And what size will it be?
You’re asking while you can.
There are things you can’t forget
like the life before this one.
from Fifth Wednesday Journal