Caprichos #242

Chocolate inside chocolate!

Caprichos #241

Tutti i bambini italiani ricevono un uovo di Pasqua...

and now I have one :-)

Espantos #356

A verdadeira Páscoa / True Easter

Primavera #26

Quando vier a Primavera,
Se eu já estiver morto,
As flores florirão da mesma maneira
E as árvores não serão menos verdes que na Primavera passada.
A realidade não precisa de mim.

Sinto uma alegria enorme
Ao pensar que a minha morte não tem importância nenhuma

Se soubesse que amanhã morria
E a Primavera era depois de amanhã,
Morreria contente, porque ela era depois de amanhã.
Se esse é o seu tempo, quando havia ela de vir senão no seu tempo?
Gosto que tudo seja real e que tudo esteja certo;
E gosto porque assim seria, mesmo que eu não gostasse.
Por isso, se morrer agora, morro contente,
Porque tudo é real e tudo está certo.

Podem rezar latim sobre o meu caixão, se quiserem.
Se quiserem, podem dançar e cantar à roda dele.
Não tenho preferências para quando já não puder ter preferências.
O que for, quando for, é que será o que é.

Alberto Caeiro, 11/7/1915
________________

When spring comes,
If I’ve already died,
The flowers will bloom in the same way
And the trees won’t be less green than they were last Spring.
Reality doesn’t need me.

I feel incredibly happy
When I think my death has absolutely no importance.

If I knew I was going to die tomorrow,
And Spring came the day after tomorrow,
I would die peacefully, because it came the day after tomorrow.
If that’s its time, when else should it come?
I like it that everything is real and everything is right;
And I like that it would be like this even if I didn’t like it.
And so, if I die now, I die peacefully
Because everything is real and everything is right.

They can pray in Latin over my coffin if they want to.
It’s alright with me if they dance and sing all around it.
I don’t have any preferences about when I won’t even be able to have preferences.
What comes, when it comes, will be what it is.

Alberto Caeiro, 7/11/1915
(translation from here)

Ditto #239

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

--Michel de Montaigne

Espantos #355

Woodpecker on campus!

Coisas que não mudam #214

A very American experience at the Cheesecake Factory

Ditto #238

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Ditto #237

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Numa sala perto de mim #221

The Gatekeepers (2012) goes over the marking moments of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past 50 years through the heads of the Israeli intelligence agency over the last 30. No consensus. No easy feelings. Just the overwhelmingly complex reality.

World Poetry Day

Though all the fates

Though all the fates should prove unkind,
Leave not your native land behind.
The ship, becalmed, at length stands still;
The steed must rest beneath the hill;
But swiftly still our fortunes pace
To find us out in every place.

The vessel, though her masts be firm,
Beneath her copper bears a worm;
Around the cape, across the line,
Till fields of ice her course confine;
It matters not how smooth the breeze,
How shallow or how deep the seas,
Whether she bears Manilla twine,
Or in her hold Madeira wine,
Or China teas, or Spanish hides,
In port or quarantine she rides;
Far from New England's blustering shore,
New England's worm her hulk shall bore,
And sink her in the Indian seas,
Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
___________

This time a lovely poem about shipworm, the nightmare of naval archeologists.

Dia Mundial da Poesia

Perfil

Não. Não tenho limites.
Quero de tudo
Tudo.
O ramo que sacudo
Fica varejado.
Já nascido em pecado,
Todos os meus pecados são mortais.
Todos tão naturais
À minha condição.
Que, quando por excepção,
Os não pratico
É que me mortifico.
Alma perdida
Antes de se perder,
Sou uma fome incontida
De viver,
E o que redime a vida
É ela não caber
Em nenhuma medida.

Coimbra, 2 de Março de 1979

Miguel Torga
________

Que bom encontrar este poema pela manhã, aqui.

Primavera #25

Spring is out!

Espantos #354

Pânicos à parte, não deixa de ter a sua graça que o governador do banco central do Chipre se chame Panicos...

Pormenores #90

Such cute little things... 

had to be historical!

Numa sala perto de mim #220

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) is surprisingly touching. Though funny at times, it focuses on non-trivial issues of mental illness that could affect anyone more frequently than you'd think.

Fé

Francisco e Jesuita SÓ pode ser um bom presságio!!

Habemus Papam

You are my all the world...

A Bar at the Folies-Berger, 1882, Édouard Manet

Your love and pity doth the impression fill

Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;

For what care I who calls me well or ill,

So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

You are my all the world, and I must strive

To know my shames and praises from your tongue:

None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.

In so profound abysm I throw all care

Of others' voices, that my adder's sense

To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

You are so strongly in my purpose bred

That all the world besides me thinks are dead.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXII

Primavera #24

Attempting to induce spring... at home.
(And thoughtful friends remain thoughtful)

Primavera #23

After a long dormant winter, the white magnolias are here.

 The pink magnolias are preparing to bloom soon!