Forever me

I who wanted to speak of the age

within this creeper,

which is my book forever aborning,

everywhere I met

occurrences and they have escaped me.

With good faith that I recognize

drawers opened to the wind,

cupboards, cemeteries,

calendars with their months

and through the cracks that opened

my face appeared to me.

As tired as I might be

of my unacceptable person

to speaking of my person I returned

and what seems worse to me

is that I was picturing myself to myself

picturing an event.

What an idiot I am I said a thousand times

to practice with mastery

descriptions of myself

as if I hadn’t had

anything better than my head,

anyone better than my errors.

I want to know, my brothers,

I said at the Fishermen’s Union,

if everyone loves himself like me.

The truth is—they answered me—

that we fish for fish

and you fish for yourself

and then return to fishing for yourself

and throwing yourself in the sea again.

Pablo Neruda