BluesAt12-Nice People

"Old books exert a strange fascination in me... their smell, their feel, their history ; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived and what they felt."

~ Lauren Willig.

Phil Greenwood (British b.1943)

..That it will never come again

Is what makes life so sweet...

~ Robert Browning. Sunrise at Mam Tor, Castleton, Peak District, England.

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Coastguard Cottages,Seven Sisters,South Downs,East Sussex.

Emilio Longoni

Dragan Lapcevic

Emil Otto Hoppe: c. 1930   

for Ros Krauss

“Lines for Winter”

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

you find yourself —

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back

and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are

My dear,

in the midst of hatred

I found that it was there in me

an invincible love.

In the midst of tears

I found that it was there in me

an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos

I found that it was there in me

an invincible tranquility.

Finally, I understood

that in the middle of winter,

I found that it was there in me

an invincible summer.

And that it makes me happy.

Because he says it doesn't matter

how hard the world

go against me,

there is something stronger in me,

something better

that immediately pushes me back.

In the eternal cycle of changeable things

New winter after new autumn comes back

to different land

In the same way.

But I don't even think I'm different

Not different leave me, closed

in the evil enclosure

Of an indecisive nature.

Prey of pale fatality

From not changing, I renew myself unfaithful

to mute purposes

Moriture and endless.

Ricardo Reis (Fernando Pessoa)

Photography: lisbonsecreta - instagram