Buscar sinceridad en unas memorias carece de sentido. Mejor sería preguntarse qué versión de uno mismo y del mundo ha escogido el autor, dado que sie… - Wisława Szymborska

A Note

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;

to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain
from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.

And how can we talk of order overall when the very placement of the stars leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?<p>Not to speak of the fog's reprehensible drifting! And dust blowing all over the steppes as if they hadn't been partitioned! And the voices coasting on obliging airwaves, that conspiratorial squeaking, those indecipherable mutters! Only what is human can truly be foreign.

I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.