Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 82, Volume 18 Number 2, November - December 1991.

Four Poems of Alberto Caeiro David Wright

After Fernando Pessoa

HA METAFISICA BASTANTE …

Metaphysics enough in not thinking of anything.
What's my idea of the world?
Who knows?
But if I fell ill, I'd think of it.

What's my notion of things?
My ideas concerning cause and effect?
My ruminations on God and the soul and the entire
    creation?
I don't know. For me, thinking about such things is
    like shutting the eyes
And not thinking - like drawing the curtains
Of my window (supposing it had any curtains).

The mystery of things? What mystery?
There's only one mystery: folk thinking about mystery.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image