DISTANCE - Cecília Benevides de Carvalho Meireles (by Darlene J. Sadlier)

Who am I, the one who is on the veranda, 

in front of this sea, under the stars, 

seeing shapes move along? 

Do they know,perchance, who they are being? 

Do they feel the sky or the waters when they pass? 

Or don´t they see, or don´t they remember? 

 Like someone from this world wh turns his eyes 

towards the moon, meditating things 

and stares into the vagueness. 

- Towards this world pass my thoughts 

so foreign, so detached, 

as if this veranda were the Moon. 

MEIRELES, Cecília. Distance. Translation by Darlene Sadlier. In. Imagery and theme in the poetry of Cecília Meireles - a study of Mar Absoluto, 1983, p. 110-111.