Academy of American Poets
View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
Want more poems?
Subscribe to our
Poem-A-Day emails.
FURTHER READING
Related Poems
Ennui
by Marianne Moore
Related Prose
Making a Space for Aphorism: Exploring the Intersection between Aphorism and Poetry
by Sharon Dolin
Sponsor a Poet Page | Add to Notebook | Email to Friend | Print

Aphorisms

 
by Antonio Porchia
translated by W. S. Merwin

Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take 
the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me.

                      *

When one does not love the impossible, one does not love anything.

                      *

Every time I wake I understand how easy it is to be nothing.

                      *

Now you do not know what to do, not even when you go back to being 
a child. And it is sad to see a child who does not know what to do.

                      *

Only a few arrive at nothing, because the way is long.






From Voices by Antonio Porchia, translated by W. S. Merwin. Translation copyright © 2003 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press. All right reserved.
Larger TypeLarger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2013 by Academy of American Poets.