Uma cidade! Um grão
de areia! Fragmentos
da Via Láctea

A city! A grain
of sand! Fragments
of the Milky Way   

Após a travessia
do deserto — um rato!
Canta? Eu também

After crossing
the desert — a mouse!
It sings? Me too.   

As formas no sonho —
a rosa e a serpente
assemelham-se

The forms in my dream —
the rose and the snake,
they are similar    

Lágrimas salgadas —
o mar permanece nos olhos
desde o princípio

Salty tears —
the sea remains in our eyes
since the beginning   

Talvez amanhã
eu saiba um pouco mais —
depois da minha morte

Perhaps tomorrow
I will know a little more —
after my death

Casimiro de Brito was born in Algarve, Portugal, in 1938. His cultural activity began in 1953 and includes contributions to newspapers, poetry readings, poetic works, fiction, essays, diaries and translations.

His activity has also involved countless lectures and colloquia at schools, factories, cultural associations and universities at home and abroad, included rather frequent attendance at conferences and poetry festivals all around the world.

He has edited several literary magazines: Cadernos do Meio-Dia (1956-1959), Outubro/Fevereiro/Novembro (1970-1972), Loreto 13 (organ of the Portuguese Writers Association), Columba (Portuguese and Brasilian magazine of poetry).

He is president of the Portuguese P.E.N. and director of three poetry festivals: in Lisbon, at Porto Santo (Madeira) and at Faro (Algarve). He was President of the Association Européenne pour la Diffusion de la Poésie. He is an advisor of the World Haiku Association. He is the author of 39 titles of poetry, fiction, aphorisms and essays and his works have been included in more than one hundred anthologies and translated into 19 languages. Several prizes for his work, including some international prizes, the last of them (2002) the first "Poetry International Prize Leopold Sedar Senghor."

MAIN POETIC WORKS

Labyrinthus, 1980, Portuguese Writers Association Award; Ode & Ceia, 1985 (includes his production from 1955 to 1984; Versilia/Itália award for the best book of "Collected poems"); Ni Maître ni Serviteur, 1986; Subitamente o Silêncio, 1991; Intensidades, 1995; Opus Affettuoso, 1997 (P.E.N. Poetry Award); Pouco de Pouco, 1999 and the selected poems O Amor, a Morte e Outros Vícios, 1999; Na Via do Mestre, an answer to the Tao te-King, 2000; Arte Pobre (collecting a few books), À sombra de Bashô (a renku with Matsuo Bashô), 2000; the book of aphorisms, Da Frágil Sabedoria, 2000; Na Barca do Coração, his diary of the year 2000 ; Animal Volátil, 2002.