11 December 2012

When you chose me ... Finale ...


Pedro Salinas is a Spanish poet who I discovered recently ... His life story is fascinating but his fate is so different from Pablo Neruda; politically and romantically  ... A road not taken is always something you wonder and I sincerely hope that "Finale" will be true for my last words on earth. At least it will be for this blog.  Tumblr is the new venture for being spontaneously combusted ... 

http://beingspontaneouslycombusted.tumblr.com/

When you chose me—
love chose—
I came out of the great anonymity
from everyone, from nothing.
Till then
I was never taller than
the sierras of the world.
I never sank deeper
than the maximum
depths marked out
on maritime charts.
And my gladness was
sad, as small watches are
without a wrist to fasten to,
without a winding crown, stopped.
But when you said: you,
to me, yes, to me singled out,
I was higher than stars,
deeper than coral.
And my joy
began to spin, caught
in your being, in your pulse.
You gave me possession of myself
when you gave your self to me.
I lived. I live. How long?
I know you will back out.
When you go
I will go back to a deaf
world that does not distinguish
gram or drop
in weight or water.
I'll be one more—like the rest—
when you are lost.
I'll lose my name,
my age, my gestures, all
lost in me, from me.
Gone back to the immense bone heap
of those who have not died
and now have nothing
to die for in life.
Pedro Salinas


Matilde, years or days   
sleeping, feverish,   
here or there,
gazing off,
twisting my spine,   
bleeding true blood,   
perhaps I awaken   
or am lost, sleeping:
hospital beds, foreign windows,
white uniforms of the silent walkers,
the clumsiness of feet.

And then, these journeys   
and my sea of renewal:   
your head on the pillow,   
your hands floating
in the light, in my light,   
over my earth.

It was beautiful to live   
when you lived!

The world is bluer and of the earth   
at night, when I sleep
enormous, within your small hands.
- Pablo Neurda