Marquez

This is the poem that appeared in a Peruvian daily as his farewell poem, when Garcia Marquez was treated for lymphatic cancer. He had completely withdrawn his public appearance by then. Well, he had no choice but to come out lest people would have thought he wrote such terrible poems ;)))

The Puppet

If for a moment God would forget that
I am a rag doll and give me a scrap of
life, possibly I would not say
everything that I think, but I would
definitely think everything that I
say.

I would value things not for how
much they are worth but rather for
what they mean.

I would sleep little, dream more. I
know that for each minute that we
close our eyes we lose sixty seconds
of light.

I would walk when the others loiter;
I would awaken when the others
sleep.

I would listen when the others
speak, and how I would enjoy a good
chocolate ice cream.

If God would bestow on me a scrap
of life, I would dress simply, I
would throw myself flat under the
sun, exposing not only my body but
also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would
write my hatred on ice and wait for
the sun to come out. With a dream
of Van Gogh I would paint on the
stars a poem by Benedetti, and a
song by Serrat would be my
serenade to the moon.

With my tears I would water the
roses, to feel the pain of their
thorns and the incarnated kiss of
their petals...My God, if I only had
a scrap of life...

I wouldn't let a single day go by
without saying to people I love, that
I love them.

I would convince each woman or
man that they are my favourites and
I would live in love with love.

I would prove to the men how
mistaken they are in thinking that
they no longer fall in love when they
grow old--not knowing that they
grow old when they stop falling in
love. To a child I would give wings,
but I would let him learn how to fly
by himself. To the old I would teach
that death comes not with old age
but with forgetting. I have learned
so much from you men....

I have learned that everybody
wants to live at the top of the
mountain without realizing that true
happiness lies in the way we climb
the slope.

I have learned that when a newborn
first squeezes his father's finger
in his tiny fist, he has caught him
forever.

I have learned that a man only has
the right to look down on another
man when it is to help him to stand
up. I have learned so many things
from you, but in the end most of it
will be no use because when they
put me inside that suitcase,
unfortunately I will be dying.