"From the affections..." by Mario Benedetti

Many visitors arrived to my blog seeking for poems from Mario Benedetti. Since I post the first poem written by him and translated into English, I realized that there are many people out there that are eager to read his poems, to enjoy his words, to feel reflected with his feelings.

I like to read Mario Benedetti in Spanish, my mother tongue. Spanish is a very beautiful language and I feel proud of its extremely rich vocabulary to express feelings, ideas, thoughts and reflections. However, while I was surfing in the Internet searching for poems translated into English, I realized that some poems go beyond language. They are just beautiful whatever the language they have been written or translated. They are essence poems.

I felt that with Benedetti. I like Benedetti in English as in Spanish and the poem I recently found it is just like a little shiny jewel.

I want to share it with all of you. Hope you enjoy it as I do.

FROM THE AFFECTIONS
How to let you know that there is always time?
That one has to look for it and give it to oneself...
That nobody lays down rules, apart from life...
That life without certain rules loses shape...
That shape is not lost when we open up...
That opening ourselves up is not to love indiscriminately...
That it is not forbidden to love...
That we can also hate...
That hate and love are two affections...
That the aggression just because, hurts a lot ...
That the wounds close...
That doors should not be closed...
That the biggest door is affection...
That affections define us...
That defining oneself is not rowing against the tide...
That not the stronger the stroke, the more you draw...
That to look for a balance doesn't mean to be warm...
That refusing words is to open distances...
That meeting is very beautiful...
That sex is part of the beauty of life ...
That life comes from sex...
That the children's asking why, has its reason why...
That wanting to know about someone, is not just curiosity...
That knowing everything about everybody is unhealthy curiosity...
That being thankful never hurts...
That self-determination is not doing things alone...
That nobody wants to be alone...
That so as not to be alone we only have to give...
That in order to give, we have to receive before...
That to be given, we also have to know how to ask...
That giving oneself as a present definitively is not to love oneself…
That to be loved we must show what we are...
That so that someone can be, they have to be helped...
That help is to encourage and support...
That adulation is not support...
That fawning is as pernicious as to turn the face...
That things face to face are honest...
That nobody is honest because they do not steal...
That when there is no pleasure in things you're not living...
That to feel life one must not forget that there is death...
That one can be a living death...
That we feel with the body and the mind...
That we listen with our ears...
That it is hard to be sensitive and not be hurt...
That being hurt is not to bleed to death...
That so as not to be hurt we build walls ...
That it would be better to build bridges...
That across them we go to the other side and no one returns...
That returning does not mean stepping back...
That stepping back may also be to go forward...
That despite going forward and forward, we do not wake up closer to the sun...
How to let you know that that nobody lays down rules, apart from life?