To not think of anything... (5)

Fernando Pessoa


To not think of anything is metaphysics enough.

What do I think of the world?
Who knows what I think of it!
If I weren't well then I'd think about it.

What's my idea about matter?
What's my opinion about causes and effects?
What are my thoughts on God and the soul
And the creation of the world?
I don't know. To think about these things would be to shut my eyes
And not think. It would be to close the curtains
Of my window (which, however, has no curtains).

The mystery of things? What mystery?
The only mystery is that some people think about mystery.
If you're in the sun and close your eyes,
You begin not to know what the sun is,
And you think about various warm things.
But open your eyes and you see the sun,
And you can no longer think about anything,
Because the light of the sun is truer than the thoughts
Of all philosophers and all poets.
The light of the sun doesn't know what it does,
And so it cannot err and is common and good.

Metaphysics? What metaphysics do those trees have?
Only that of being green and lush and of having branches
Which bear fruit in their season, and we think nothing of it.
We hardly ever notice them.
But what better metaphysics than theirs,
Which consists of not knowing why they live
And in not knowing that they don't know?

"The inner makeup of things..."
"The inner meaning of the Universe..."
All of this is unreal and means absolutely nothing.
It's incredible that anyone can think about such things.
It's like thinking about reasons and objectives
When morning is breaking, and on the trunks of the trees
A faint glimmer of gold is dissolving into the darkness.

To think about the inner meaning of things
Is superfluous, like thinking about health
Or carrying a glass to a spring.
The only inner meaning of things
Is that they have no inner meaning at all.

I don't believe in God because I've never seen him.
If he wanted me to believe in him,
Then surely he'd come and speak with me.
He would enter by my door
Saying, "Here I am!"

(This may sound ridiculous to those who,
Because they aren't used to looking at things,
Can't understand a man who speaks of them
In the way that looking at them teaches.)

But if God is the flowers and trees
And hills and sun and moon,
Then I believe in him,
I believe in him at every moment,
And my life is all a prayer and a mass
And a communion by way of my eyes and ears.

But if God is the flowers and trees
And hills and sun and moon,
Then why should I call him God?
I'll call him flowers and trees and hills and sun and moon.
Because if to my eyes he made himself
Sun and moon and flowers and trees and hills,
If he appears to me as trees and hills
And moon and sun and flowers,
Then he wants me to know him
As trees and hills and flowers and moon and sun.

And so I obey him.
(Do I know more about God than God knows about himself?)
I obey him by living spontaneously
As a man who opens his eyes and sees,
And I call him moon and sun and flowers and trees and hills,
And I love him without thinking of him,
And I think him by seeing and hearing,
And I am with him at every moment.

*Footnote: this poem was originally written in Portuguese and was translated by Richard Zenith.