Drinking a Cloud (With Fernando Pessoa)

Sitting right at the center of several distances
equidistant and inert
I stir an abstracted downpour inside a cup
placed on the top of a street
where no one arrives, although all walk by
this cloud.
It is from here that I see him and he is the one who sees
without a mere glance crossing steps of time
wet upon the pavement
the same reflection in the silhouettes, countless and in perennial motion
who inscribe eccentric circles
of an arrival, evasive and ambiguously flavoured
of water, or maybe absinth, or presumably
coffee, for those who presume it all
and yet drink nothing within the absence of colour
present inside the cup, overflowing
of this cloud.
They drink nothing of the thirst of these silhouettes
that he writes as he sits right at the center of several distances
inert and equidistant
and which I stir inside an empty cup
placed on the abstracted top of a selfish street
where all merely walk by, evading the downpour
and the reflections which they could very well read
if only they would arrive at that time, wet in the steps crossed
upon this cloud.
Never will we meet and yet
I salute him, and he salutes me
- all of me and all of him -
across the distances reflected upon the wet top
of the steps which time will, perennially,
stir inside the silhouettes sitting right at the center
of distances, eccentric and equidistant
abstracted in the ambiguity, presumably unquenchable
with flavours that no one will read
for all walk merely by all, yet never arriving to the solitude
in the lips of these crowds within ourselves, placed
upon this cloud.
(Upon the wet pavement
all this seems to be nothing but a bronze table
with a semblance, inert, sitting
as it perennially stirs a bronze coffee
right at the center of a street
for those who walk by, evading the downpour
presumable within the cloud…)

© 2005 Alexandra* ~ OneLight*® Authors & Creations

On the 70^th anniversary of the death of Fernando Pessoa, one of the greatest poets of the 20^th century. Fernando Pessoa had an extremely complex personality, which unfolded not only in his own writings, but also through those of nothing less than 72 alter-egos, of whom Álvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis and Alberto Caeiro became the best known. Fernando Pessoa was also a very solitary person, in spite of his intrinsic “crowd”. My humble poem is dedicated to him, because I can relate, as many poets may when they suffer this sense of solitude and of being “lost” amidst their own inner “crowd”… while all the other crowds walk by. It is inspired in a bronze statue of Fernando Pessoa, in which he is represented sitting at a table, with a bronze cup of coffee before him. The statue can be admired in the famous Rua do Chiado (Chiado Street), in downtown Lisbon.

Recommended reading, in addition to the vast and heterogeneous work of Fernando Pessoa and his alter-egos: “Dreams of Dreams and The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa” by Antonio Tabucchi.