Introduction.

Welcome, wandering cybernaut, to this little space. Here you will find a little project I will dedicate my spare time to: translating some of Jaime Sabines' poetry and prose. Why, you may ask? The reason is quite simple: as a writer myself, I find his style mesmerizing, his stark letters luring, his feelings about life blinding. There is something special about reading his poems that makes you feel you're reading something you wrote, but you never dared to express.

Jaime Sabines is you, and me. He is a human, only a human.

Jaime Sabines is one of Mexico's most outstanding poets. Born in 1926 in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Sabines began writing poetry at an early age. He first came to Mexico City in 1945, where he studied philosophy and letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). A collection of his work, Nuevo recuento de poemas, was issued by the publisher Joaquín Mortiz in 1977, and the Secretary of Education in 1986.

(Source: http://www.tameme.org/issue_1/sabines.html)

After this (really) brief introduction, I'd like to begin with one of his texts, one that I find particullarly deep. At least for my understanding. I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions, since this is my first attempt at translating literary works.

Please enjoy it.


I don't want to convince anybody of nothing.

I don't want to convince anybody of anything. Trying to convince another person is indecorous, is an attack against his freedom to think or believe or to do whatever he wants. I want only to teach, to disclose, to show, not to demonstrate. Let each one reach the truth by his own steps, for nobody to call him mistaken or limited. (Who is who to say "this is this way", if humanity's history is nothing more than a story of contradictions and probing and searchs?)

If there is somebody I have to convince someday, that somebody has to be me. Convincing myself that it's not worth it crying, or grieving or thinking about death. "The old age, the sickness and death" of Buda are nothing more than death, and death is unavoidable. As unavoidable as birth.

The best is to live the best way possible. Fighting, hurting, caressing, dreaming.(But always living in the best way possible!)

While I can't breathe underwater, or fly (but truly fly, with my own arms), I'll have to like walking on earth, and being a man, not a fish or a bird.

I don't have any desire to be told that the moon is different from my dreams.