I've been reading Fernando Pessoa's The Keeper of Sheep and I came across this poem about emitting poems to the greater world.

XLVIII

From the highest window of my house
With a white handkerchief I bid good-bye
To my poems going off to humanity.

And I’m neither happy nor sad.
That’s the destiny of my poems.
I wrote them and must show them to everyone
Because I cannot do otherwise,
As the flower can’t hide its color,
Or the river hide its flowing,
or the tree its fruit-giving.

There they go off in the distance, as in a coach,
And I feel sorrow without wanting to,
Like bodily pain.

Who knows who’s going to read them?
Who knows what hands they’ll reach?

Flower, it was for eyes that my destiny picked me.
Tree, it was for mouths my fruit was plucked.
River, it was the destiny of my waters not to remain in me.
I yield, and feel almost happy,
Almost happy, like one who’s tired of being sad.

Go, go from me!
The tree goes by, its remains strewn everywhere by Nature.
The flower wilts, its dust remains forever.
The river flows, entering the sea, and in its waters always its own remains.

Like the Universe, I pass and I remain.

This is the best explanation I've seen for why we send our poems out into the world (besides vanity, though there is always a whiff of that, even in this poem). In The Little Prince, the rose was the vainest creature of all. Still, I've only started sending out poems in earnest, and this poem made me glad I have. To do otherwise would be miserly, and knowing that there are people on the other end will keep me honest (though it also bears the danger of making me dishonest – we’ll see).

I love how the poem starts with such a Victorian image, waving goodbye with a handkerchief, of all things. Also, from what I know of Pessoa, I can’t imagine him doing something like that, which I guess is why he wrote this as Alberto Caeiro, who would. There’s an innocence and lack of irony in this poems, which it needs to succeed. Comparing the poet to trees and flowers seems disarmingly naive, but if you think about it, it’s more down to earth than invoking some muse. Those last two lines make me think of Heraclitus, and of the poem “Ars Poetica” by Jorge Luis Borges. Also, there is something in the last line that echoes Eastern philosophy, via Emerson. I swear I've seen it before.