My Life So Far #102
Wake up. Day calls you
Pedro Salinas
translated by Willis Barnstone
Wake up. Day calls you
to your life: your duty.
And to live, nothing more.
Root it out of the glum
night and the darkness
that covered your body
for which light waited
on tiptoe in the dawn.
Stand up, affirm the straight
simple will to be
a pure slender virgin.
Test your bodys metal.
cold, heat? Your blood
will tell against the snow,
or behind the window.
The colour
in your cheeks will tell.
And look at people. Rest
doing no more than adding
your perfection to another
day. Your task
is to carry your life high,
and play with it, hurl it
like a voice to the clouds
so it may retrieve the light
already gone from us.
That is your fate: to live
Do nothing.
Your work is you, nothing more.
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Woke up yesterday to my voiceless cries. There exists a desire to let go of whatever it is that is inside me. But because it is nameless and undefinable, the confusion worsens by the second. I tried. I have tried several cures to this seeming madness. But no drug, no religion has worked out for me. The storm in my chest goes on and on and on and on and on. I wait for the day that I give out one last sigh. Tonight, I cry.