Watch this space.

Watch this space.


For today, there is something i want to say out loud. Popping in to this beloved space to post it, just to see what might happen, I stumbled onto an old post, describing how Benedetti´s No Te Salves fell into my hands., I've copied the old post below. The notebook page the nameless peregrina insisted I read and then keep--sits atop a stack of papers in a corner of what will some day be my office in this middle American condo of mine. No Te Salves is waiting to be framed. So I can stumble across it far more frequently in the future.

But it took this blog to drop it back into my hands today.




One day, very early in my 17 day stay in Arrés, a Spanish pilgrim slammed her notebook down on the table in front of me, flipped forward a few pages, and, looking me straight in the eyes, gave me a direct order.

"Read this."

Next morning before heading back to the Camino, she tore it from her book and gave it to me. It faced me every morning from the shelf above my bed in the hospitaleros' room.

She gave me Benedetti, in Spanish. No te salves.

Here you have it, then. Below. Treat number 2, as I've just googled it. A quick look hasn't yielded a translation I love, but this is my favorite, transcribed below.





No te salves/Don't Save Yourself

by Mario Benedetti

Don't stay motionless by the roadside
don't freeze joy or love halfheartedly
don't save yourself
now
or ever
don't save yourself
don't become
serene
don't keep only a still corner in this world
don't let your eyelids droop heavy
like judgements
don't stay without lips
don't sleep without dreams,
imagine you're bloodless or judge yourself in haste

but if
after all
you can't help it
and you freeze joy
and you love halfheartedly
and you save yourself,
become serene,
keep a still corner in the world
let your eyelids drop heavy as judgements
and stay without lips
and sleep without dreams,
imagine yourself bloodless,
judge yourself in haste and
stay motionless by the side of the road

and you save yourself
then
don't stay with me.