[lbo-talk] Narmada, damn!

[James Heartfield]

Today I read almost two pages
In a book by a mystical poet
And I laughed like someone who'd cried a lot.

Mystical poets are sick philosophers
And philosophers are crazy.

Mystical poets say flowers feel
And they say stones have a soul
And they say rivers have ecstasies in the moonlight.

But flowers wouldn't be flowers if they felt, 
They'd be people;
And if stones had a soul, they'd be living things, they wouldn't be stones;
And if rivers had ecstasies in the moonlight,
Rivers would be sick people.

You need to not know what flowers and stones and rivers are
To talk about their feelings.

Talking about the soul of stones, of flowers, of rivers,
Is talking about yourself and your false thoughts.
Thank God stones are only stones,
And rivers are nothing but rivers,
And flowers are just flowers.

Me, I write the prose of my poems
And I'm at peace,
Because I know I comprehend Nature on the outside;
And I don't comprehend Nature on the inside
Because Nature doesn't have an inside;
If she did she wouldn't be Nature.

Alberto Caeiro da Silva (1889-1915)
http://alberto-caeiro.blogspot.com/