Gabriel Celaya

Tell me how you live, how you're dying

Gabriel Celaya

 

Tell me how you live;

just tell me how to spend your days,

your very slow hatreds, your cheerful gunpowder’s

and the confused waves that carry you lost

in the changing foam, of sudden whiteness.

 

Tell me how you live;

come to me, face to face;

tell me your lies (mine are worse),

your resentments (I also suffer),

and that stupid pride (I can understand you).

 

Tell me how you die;

nothing yours is secret:

the nausea of emptiness (or pleasure, its the same);

unforeseen madness of any live moment;

hope that delves stubbornly in the emptiness.

 

Tell me how you die;

how you abandon – sage-,

how-frivolous-you shine of pure fugitive

how you end with nothing

and you teach me, of course, to stay calm.

 

 

From "quietly talking, 1945