They spoke to me of people, and of humanity, By Fernando Pessoa

They spoke to me of people, and of humanity.

But I’ve never seen people, or humanity.

I’ve seen various people, astonishingly dissimilar,

Each separated from the next by an unpeopled space.

From “Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems,” edited and translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (Grove: 290 pp., $25)