Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.



-Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

Olas de mar

“De que Nahui Ollin tenía el mar en los ojos, no cabe la menor duda. El agua salada se movía dentro de las dos cuencas, y adquiría la placidez del lago o se encrespaba, furiosa tormenta verde, ola inmensa, amenazante. Vivir con dos olas del mar dentro de la cabeza no ha de ser fácil” 


Elena Poniatowska

Como si abajo estuviera el mar

‎"Él recordó al bueno de Vila y a la abuela de Viña de Mar, echó una última mirada al escritorio, revolvió los papeles con los dedos de una mano mientras apagaba el pucho en el cenicero y luego, despacio y sin vacilaciones, saltó al vacío por la ventana del patio interior. Como si de la puerta trasera se tratara, pensó, simplemente como si abajo estuviera el mar". 

Tomado de "Diario de Bar" de Roberto Bolaño & A.G. Porta.