Beyond The Bend in The Road

 

Beyond the bend in the road

There may be a well, and there may be a castle,

And there may be just more road.

I don’t know and don’t ask.

As long as I’m on the road that’s before the bend

I look only at the road before the bend,

Because the road before the bend is all I can see.

It would do me no good to look anywhere else

Or at what I can’t see.

Let’s pay attention only to where we are.

There’s only enough beauty in being here and not somewhere else.

If there are people beyond the bend in the road,

Let them worry about what’s beyond the bend in the road.

That, for them, is the road.

If we’re to arrive there, when we arrive there we’ll know.

For now we know only that we’re not there.

Here there’s just the road before the bend, and before the bend

There’s the road without any bend.

1914
Fernando Pessoa
A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe