Líneas rosas 1

HEMINGWAY’S ADVICE TO A VILLAGER

Blend into life.
Let the breeze from the street
caress you.
Open all doors.
Read Nabokov and Barbara Cartland.
Become particular with the infinite density
of the shepherd and the hairdresser,
become universal with Kant and Degas.
Go to the underworld for drugs
and to the palace to taste
the duchess’s warmth.
Life is experience,
and no experience is useless.
May death welcome you with
a face full of wrinkles,
without sparing you anguish and joy.
Dividing experiences into lawful and unlawful
is the work of police officers,
of agents of the law.
For there is no difference
between prostitutes and virgins,
birds and seas and moons.
Accumulate and release,
learn and judge,
be wise and foolish,
divided and undivided,
nothing remains and nothing
is added if the criterion is yourself,
for neither mist nor shadow
obscure the earth’s own light.