sarah dickenson snyder / poem

A Small Humanity

We can't stay forever

on the Azores where there are no snakes, 

no temptations other than wind

& green. Or on the mainland—

poor Fernando Pessoa died 

at forty-seven of a diseased liver 

in a hospital where he wrote 

his last sentence on a napkin: 

Não sei o que o amanhã trará.

(I know not what tomorrow will bring.) 

Maybe I should be thinking 

of the best last words. 

Say them always. Just in case. 

Thank you, to everything. 

To everyone. 

Thank you, millions 

of limestone chunks 

in the mosaic of sidewalks

in Lisbon. Thank you, dried wild hydrangea 

on Sao Miguel Island, the way you hold on 

until the next flowers burst 

and then your willingness 

to fall back into the earth. 

When Pessoa wrote, 

Hoje é o ponto de encontro

de uma pequena humanidade

que pertence somente a mim

(Today is the meeting place 

of a small humanity 

that belongs only to me), 

was he remembering 

when his father died

and he was only five? 

The many untetherings 

no one would prefer—

the first losses: 

umbilical cord, 

breasts left, skin on skin. 

How we reach for the moon-

shadowed hush, the blink 

of a firefly, a drifting parasol.

---

After years in the classroom, Sarah Dickenson Snyder now carves in stone, sculls on the Connecticut River, and rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has five poetry collections: The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2023), and To Eve (Nixes Mate Review 2026). Several poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Work is in Rattle, Verse Daily, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com