'Everything that happens where we live happens in us. Everything that ceases in what we see ceases in us. Everything that has been, if we saw it when it was, was taken from us when it went away. The office boy left today.'
~Fernando Pessoa


It’s the office boy -
And, God… the baby.


They existed, undeniably so,
In the days that came and went
[and he loved them]
Until they, themselves,
Were gone.

Somehow in their going…
They became more-real

And the sudden, pained awareness
Of their being, then, not-there
Was impossible to deny
And undeniably unbearable
(because he loved them) .


It’s the office boy –
And God, the baby,


And you

And me

And… that.



(The 'office boy' quote above was extracted from Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet, entry 279 and I first discovered the 'baby' in 'Yes, I Know It's All Quite Natural', a piece attributed to Alvaro De Campos in the book Fernando Pessoa & Co. These two books are among those that NEVER get put away.)

Christine Austin Cole

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-then-not/