The Emptiness of Man

The emptiness of man is not like

any other: not like an empty coat

or empty sack (things which do not stand up

when empty, such as an empty man),

the emptiness of man is more like fullness

in swollen things which keep on swelling,

the way a sack must feel

that is being filled, or any sack at all.

The emptiness of man, this full emptiness,

is not like a sack of bricks' emptiness,

or a sack of rivets', it does not have the pulse

that beats in a seed bag or bag of eggs.

 

The emptiness of man, though it resembles

fullness, and seems all of a piece, actually

is made of nothings, bits of emptiness,

like the sponge, empty when filled,

swollen like the sponge, with air, with empty air;

it has copied its very structure from the sponge,

it is made up in clusters, of bubbles, of non-grapes.

Man's empty fullness is like a sack

filled with sponges, is filled with emptiness:

man's emptiness, or swollen emptiness,

or the emptiness that swells by being empty.

by Brazillian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto
https://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poetry-1937-1990-Wesleyan/dp/0819522317