“Love is urgent” by Eugénio de Andrade
Love is urgent.
It is urgent a boat in the sea.
It is urgent to destroy certain words,
hate, loneliness and cruelty,
some regrets,
many swords.
It is urgent to invent joy,
multiply the kisses, the crops,
it is urgent to discover roses and rivers
and clear mornings.
Silence falls on the shoulders and the light
impure, until it hurts.
It is urgent love, it is urgent
to stay.
“Before You Came” by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.
Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.
And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.
Don’t leave now that you’re here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.
“And sometimes” by David Mourao Ferreira
And at times the nights last for months
And at times the months are oceans
And at times the arms that we hold
are never again the same and at times
we find of ourselves in few months
what the night has made us in many years
And at times we pretend to remember
And at times we remember that at times
as we become fond of oceans
it is just the dregs of the nights not the months
in the depths of the glasses we find
And at times we laugh or we cry
And at times, at times, Ah, at times
in a second so many years fly by
“Love Sonnet 17” by Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
Secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Untitled, by R.M. Drake
But dear,
don’t be
afraid of
love, it’s
only magic.
How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog by Taylor Mali
First of all, it’s a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.*
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you’re walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain’t no one going to mess with you.
Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.
Who knows what love could do in its own defense?
On cold winter nights, love is warm.
It lies between you and lives and breathes
and makes funny noises.
Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs.
It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.
Love doesn’t like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.
Is love good all the time? No! No!
Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.
Love makes messes.
Love leaves you little surprises here and there.
Love needs lots of cleaning up after.
Sometimes you just want to get love fixed.
Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper
and swat love on the nose,
not so much to cause pain,
just to let love know Don’t you ever do that again!
Sometimes love just wants to go out for a nice long walk.
Because love loves exercise. It will run you around the block
and leave you panting, breathless. Pull you in different directions
at once, or wind itself around and around you
until you’re all wound up and you cannot move.
But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.
Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.
“A Secreta Viagem” by David Mourão-Ferreira
No barco sem ninguém, anónimo e vazio,
ficámos nós os dois, parados, de mão dada…
Como podem só dois governar um navio?
Melhor é desistir e não fazermos nada!Sem um gesto sequer, de súbito esculpidos,
tornamo-nos reais, e de madeira, à proa…
Que figuras de lenda! Olhos vagos, perdidos…
Por entre nossas mãos, o verde mar se escoa…Aparentes senhores de um barco abandonado,
nós olhamos, sem ver, a longínqua miragem…
Aonde iremos ter? — Com frutos e pecado,
se justifica, enflora, a secreta viagem!Agora sei que és tu quem me fora indicada.
O resto passa, passa… alheio aos meus sentidos.
— Desfeitos num rochedo ou salvos na enseada,
a eternidade é nossa, em madeira esculpidos!
“The Art of Marriage,” by William A. Peterson
The little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice,
but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating
gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.
“Buried Light,” by Beau Taplin
Home is not where
you are from
it is where
you belong.
Some of us
travel the whole
world to find it.
Others,
find it in a person.
I carry your heart with me i carry it in by E E Cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
“O Mundo não se Fez para Pensarmos Nele” by Alberto Caeiro
O meu olhar é nítido como um girassol.
Tenho o costume de andar pelas estradas
Olhando para a direita e para a esquerda,
E de, vez em quando olhando para trás…
E o que vejo a cada momento
É aquilo que nunca antes eu tinha visto,
E eu sei dar por isso muito bem…Sei ter o pasmo essencial
Que tem uma criança se, ao nascer,
Reparasse que nascera deveras…
Sinto-me nascido a cada momento
Para a eterna novidade do Mundo…
Creio no mundo como num malmequer,
Porque o vejo. Mas não penso nele
Porque pensar é não compreender …
O Mundo não se fez para pensarmos nele
(Pensar é estar doente dos olhos)
Mas para olharmos para ele e estarmos de acordo…
Eu não tenho filosofia: tenho sentidos…
Se falo na Natureza não é porque saiba o que ela é,
Mas porque a amo, e amo-a por isso,
Porque quem ama nunca sabe o que ama
Nem sabe por que ama, nem o que é amar …
Amar é a eterna inocência,
E a única inocência não pensar…
“Soneto do Cativo” by David Mourão Ferreira
Se é sem dúvida Amor esta explosão
de tantas sensações contraditórias;
a sórdida mistura das memórias,
tão longe da verdade e da invenção;o espelho deformante; a profusão
de frases insensatas, incensórias;
a cúmplice partilha nas histórias
do que os outros dirão ou não dirão;se é sem dúvida Amor a cobardia
de buscar nos lençóis a mais sombria
razão de encantamento e de desprezo;não há dúvida, Amor, que te não fujo
e que, por ti, tão cego, surdo e sujo,
tenho vivido eternamente preso!
I don’t know how many souls I have – Poem by Fernando Pessoa
I don’t know how many souls I have.
I’ve changed at every moment.
I always feel like a stranger.
I’ve never seen or found myself.
From being so much, I have only soul.
A man who has soul has no calm.
A man who sees is just what he sees.
A man who feels is not who he is.
Attentive to what I am and see,
I become them and stop being I.
Each of my dreams and each desire
Belongs to whoever had it, not me.
I am my own landscape,
I watch myself journey –
Various, mobile, and alone.
Here where I am I can’t feel myself.
That’s why I read, as a stranger,
My being as if it were pages.
Not knowing what will come
And forgetting what has passed,
I note in the margin of my reading
What I thought I felt.
Rereading, I wonder: “Was that me?”
God knows, because he wrote it.
“Agora que Sinto Amor by Alberto Caeiro
Agora que sinto amor
Tenho interesse no que cheira.
Nunca antes me interessou que uma flor tivesse cheiro.
Agora sinto o perfume das flores como se visse uma coisa nova.
Sei bem que elas cheiravam, como sei que existia.
São coisas que se sabem por fora.
Mas agora sei com a respiração da parte de trás da cabeça.
Hoje as flores sabem-me bem num paladar que se cheira.
Hoje às vezes acordo e cheiro antes de ver.