Accept the universes the gods gave it to you. If the gods wanted to give you something else They’d have done it. If there are other matters and other worlds There are.

— Alberto Caeiro

A kid thinking about fairy tales and believing in fairy tales Acts like a sick god, but like a god. Because even though he affirms that what doesn’t exist, He knows things exist, that he exists, He knows existing and doesn’t explain itself, And he knows there’s no reason at all for anything to exist. He knows being is the point. All he doesn’t know is that thought isn’t the point.(10/1/1917)

— Alberto Caeiro

All beings exist and nothing else And that’s why they’re called beings

— Alberto Caeiro

All the evil in the world comes from us bothering with each other, Wanting to do good, wanting to do evil. Our soul and the sky and the earth are enough for us. To want more is to lose this, and be unhappy.

— Alberto Caeiro

Also at times, on the surface of streams, Water?bubbles Forman grow and burst And have no meaning at all Except that they’re water?bubbles Growing and bursting.

— Alberto Caeiro

And I find a happiness in the fact of accepting —In the sublimely scientific and difficult fact of accepting the inevitable natural.

— Alberto Caeiro

And since today’s all there is for now, that’s everything. Who knows if I’ll be dead the day after tomorrow? If I’m dead the day after tomorrow, the thunderstorm day after tomorrow Will be another thunderstorm than if I hadn’t died. Of course, I know thunderstorms don’t fall because I see them, But if I weren’t in the world, The world would be different —There would be me the less —And the thunderstorm would fall on a different world and would be another thunderstorm. No matter what happens, what’s falling is what’ll be falling when it falls.(7/10/1930)

— Alberto Caeiro

And sometimes if I want To imagine I’m a lamb (Or a whole flock Spreading out all over the hillsides I can be a lot of happy things at the same time), It’s only because I feel what I write at sunset, Or when a cloud passes its hand over the light And silence runs over the grass outside. When I sit and write poems Or, walking along the roads or pathways, I write poems on the paper in my thoughts, I feel a staff in my hand And see my silhouette On top of a knoll, Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas, Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock, With a silly smile like someone who doesn’t understand what somebody’s saying But tries to pretend they do.

— Alberto Caeiro

A row of trees far away, there on the hillside. But what is it, a row of trees? It’s just trees. Row and the plural trees aren’t things, they’re names.

— Alberto Caeiro

A stagecoach passed by on the road and went on;And the road didn’t become more beautiful or even more ugly. That’s human action on the outside world. We take nothing away, and we put nothing back, we pass by, and we forget;And the sun is always punctual every day.(5/7/14)

— Alberto Caeiro