EPIPHANY

I'm just back from my Christmas holiday in Spain. It's been a couple of intense weeks and all that intensity brought a revelation with it. At first, a cloudy feeling started to haunt me, but it was still something vague, I couldn't quite grasp it. However, one day, when browsing a book of poems by Jaime Gil de Biedma, the vagueness condensed abruptly into something very clear and painful. The poem before my eyes was at last explaining it all:

NO VOLVERÉ A SER JOVEN

Que la vida iba en serio
uno lo empieza a comprender más tarde
-como todos los jóvenes, yo vine
a llevarme la vida por delante.

Dejar huella quería
y marcharme entre aplausos
-envejecer, morir, eran tan sólo
las dimensiones del teatro.

Pero ha pasado el tiempo
y la verdad desagradable asoma:
envejecer, morir,
es el único argumento de la obra.

And this is my* reckless try at traslating it:

WON'T BE YOUNG ANYMORE

Life was in earnest -
one realises later on.
Like all young people, I had come
to take life by storm.

Leaving my mark I wanted
and leave to a standing ovation
– to die, to age were just
the dimensions of the stage.

But time has gone by
and the nasty truth shows now:
to die, to age are just
all the plot in the play.

*my translation owes a big deal to the one made by Elena on her blog I'm not Michelle Pfeiffer. Thanks Elena ;).