33 YEARS OLD Poem by Washington Cucurto

Upon my arrival in Stuttgart, sad news:
a strong young man, supermarket worker
killed himself going to buy things at a supermarket.
I'm 33 and I know that he was too
and will be, eternally . . .
33 years old was the Mexican poet who killed himself
on the road from Bari to Brindisi, going to board
a boat bound for Greece.
We all die a little at 33 . . .
While the funeral procession of the wind strikes
the windows, the nights, the days
making us remember our childhood, something tells us,
that one day He will come.
The wind opens the windows with gloves of dead leaves.
The young man died and now I occupy his room
and I'm afraid because I'm the same age he was.
In this room I have two windows:
one looks out on a strange castle full of tourists and the other
on a forest. Beautiful at dawn and fearsome at night.
I am so close to both windows! One on the old world,
the other on the wild.
Both worlds call to me, they strike at my window at every moment
and they will keep going until the end of days.
The young man died headed for the supermarket . . .
At 33 . . .
I open the window to listen to the sound of the forest, the colors
threading into the dark sky. Smell of a kerosene heater
going in the depths of chest. It's the forest's heart!
I never lived close to a forest.
And I think I haven't even ever seen one.
This is a beautiful, strong, tall, friendly forest . . .
That is 33 years old . . .