Memória e poesia

In beauty I find my reality

Going to São Paulo, I came across you, all the beauty embodied in one person, in one place, in one personality. All I could do was stand there, admiring. On that bus, everything became magical.

João was a very close friend. Realizing that all my concentration was on that woman, João nudged me and suggested:

• Are you just going to stare or are you going to get up and talk to her?

I don’t know why, but I lacked courage.

• I’ll be there in a bit – I replied to João, without taking my eyes off her.

I thought about what to say, how to behave and how I could hide my shyness when I talked to her. Shyness had taken over my entire being at that time. I didn’t want to be misunderstood.

Everything at that moment seemed difficult to execute. I didn’t understand why, but I just felt inferior in front of her, in front of the beauty that personified her. Why did I consider her too beautiful for me? How could I have avoided this conclusion?

When I decided to get up to go to her, my alarm clock started to ring. I then had to get up to go to work.

At the end of the day, my life, my reality is this: during the day, working so much that I am unable to identify someone’s face; At night, all I have to do is dream and, in the dream, wish to see, touch, feel the beauty that exists to be experienced and that I cannot.

Carlos de Campos