MARIO BENEDETTI, URUGUAY

Pastime

When we were children

the elderly were thirty
and a puddle was an ocean
death smooth and simple
did not exist.

In the roving saint winds of Jetvan,
the touch of those absences
past whom, a meaning in life
still remains.

later on as youngsters

the elderly were forty
a pond was an ocean
death nothing more than
a word

when we married

the elderly were fifty years old
and a lake was an ocean
death was the death of
the other

now being old
we already give importance to the truth
the ocean finally became the ocean
but death begins to be
our death.

Mario Benedetti
Tr. Germain Droogenbroodt

The infinite

From one time to this part
the infinite
has shortened
dangerously.

Who would have presumed
that second to second
each crumb
of its bread without limits
would crash
like a pebble rolled
in the abyss.

Mario Benedetti
Tr. Germain Droogenbroodt

Mario BENEDETTI, Benedetti was born 1920 in Paso de Toros, Tacuarembó, Uruguay and died in 2009 in Montevideo.
During the 1970s, when a military dictatorship ruled Uruguay, Benedetti lived in exile in Buenos Aires, Lima, Havana and Spain.
He used to divide his time between Montevideo and Madrid. He has been granted Honoris Causa doctorates by the Universidad de la República, Uruguay and the Universidad de Alicante, Spain.
He was granted the Premio Menéndez Pelayo in 2005. His poetic work is extensive and considered one of Latin Americas most important modern poets, however not well known in the non-Spanish speaking world.