Once a young woman asked me,

“How does it feel to be a man?”
And I replied,

“My dear,
I am not so sure.”

Then she said,
“Well, aren’t you a man?”

And this time I replied,

“I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.

My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,

‘How does it feel to be a heart?’

For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere!”

by Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, who you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your Life.

poem by Derek Walcott

Yo tal vez yo no seré, tal vez no pude,
no fui, no vi, no estoy:
qué es esto? Y en qué Junio, en qué madera
crecí hasta ahora, continué naciendo?

No crecí, no crecí, seguzí muriendo?

Yo repetí en las puertas
el sonido del mar,
de las campanas:
yo pregunté por mí, con embeleso
(con ansiedad más tarde),
Ya estaba lejos mi anterioridad,
ya no me respondía yo a mí mismo,
me había ido muchas veces yo.

Y fui a la próxima casa,
a la próxima mujer,
a todos partes
a preguntar por mí, por ti, por todos:
y donde yo no estaba ya no estaban,
todo estaba vacío
porque sencillamente no era hoy,
era manana.

Por qué buscar en vano
en cada puerta en que no existiremos
porque no hemos llegado todavía?

Así fue como supe
que yo era exactamente como tú
y como todo el mundo.

—————————————-
Everybody

I, perhaps I never will be, perhaps I was not able,
never was, never saw, don’t exist:
what is all this? In which June, in what wood
did I grow until now, being born and born again?

I didn’t grow, never grew, just went on dying?

In doorways I repeated
the sound of the sea,
of the bells:
I asked for myself, with wonder,
(and later with trembling hands),
with little bells, with water,
with sweetness:
I was always arriving late.
I had traveled far from who I was,
I could not answer any questions about myself,
I had too often left who I am.

I went to the next house,
to the next woman,
I traveled everywhere
asking for myself, for you, for everybody:
and where I was not there was no one,
everywhere it was empty
because it wasn’t today,
it was tomorrow.

Why search in vain
in every door in which we will not exist
because we have not arrived yet?

That is how I found out
that I was exactly like you
and like everybody.

by Pablo Neruda from The Sea and The Bells, translated by William O’Daly

In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated

I have
touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide

Everything else
is too narrow

You know this well,
you who are also there