There you were, grandma, sitting on the sill outside your house, open to the vast, starry night, to the sky of which you knew nothing and through which you would never travel, to the silence of the fields and the shadowy trees, and you said, with all the serenity of your ninety years and the fire of an adolescence never lost: “The world is so beautiful, it makes me sad to think I have to die.” In those exact words. I was there.
translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Lovely alliterations and evocation.
Saramago is a wonderful writer. It is a pleasure to read him out loud and get lost in his voice.
Do you post any of your own? Did I miss?
Yes, I post my own poetry under “other writings” and memoir pieces under “thoughts & observations”. Actually anything that isn’t attributed to an author is mine.
Reblogged this on Leonard Durso.