I recently ran across a reference to an Argentinian poet named Antonio Porchia. I say "poet" because that's what everybody calls him in all the references I've found, but his "poems" were typically one sentence long. Maybe two. I'd be more inclined to call them "aphorisms" except he hated the term. (Not sure why.) Maybe "proverbs". Or else -- the term he himself used (and the name of the book where they are collected) -- "voices".
Some of them are very evocative. Some of them could easily replace the motto on my masthead ("Talks loud. Laughs louder. Thinks silently.") Some of them I don't begin to understand. But I picked up a volume of them, and have it on my desk at work. And when I'm bored of the stuff I'm supposed to be doing, I pick it up and nibble, ... just a bit.
__________
Las pequeñeces son lo eterno, y lo demás, todo lo demás, lo breve, lo muy breve.
The little things are what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity.
Trátame como debes tratarme, no como merezco ser tratado.
Treat me as you should treat me, not as I should be treated.
Sé que no tienes nada. Por ello tepido todo. Para que tengas todo.
I know that you have nothing. That is why I ask you for everything. So that you will have everything.
Se vive con la esperanza de llegar a ser un recuerdo.
One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.
Han dejado de engañarte, no de quererte. Y te parece que han dejado de quererte.
They have stopped deceiving you, not loving you. And it seems to you that they have stopped loving you.
Lo pagado con nuestra vida nunca es caro.
What we pay for with our lives never costs too much.
Qué te he dado, lo sé. Qué has recibido, no lo sé.
I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.
En una alma llena cabe todo y en una alma vacía no cabe nada. ¡Quién comprende!
A full heart has room for everything and an empty heart has room for nothing. Who understands?
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