112
By Ricardo Reis
Translated By Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari
Translated from the Portuguese
2 September 1923
I do not want to remember or to know myself.
We just get in the way if we look into who we are.
Not knowing we are alive
Is quite enough of life.
The hour in which we live is just as alive
As we are, and also equally dead
When it passes along with us
As we pass along with it.
If knowing this is of no help in knowing this
(Because otherwise, what’s the point of knowing ourselves?),
The best life is the life
Lived out unmeasured.
Notes:
Translation copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari. Used by permission of New Directions.
Read the translator's note by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari.
Source: Poetry (January/February 2026)