NOTES FOR MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY Poem by Fernando Linero

I was born in Santa Marta on October 4, 1957.
I have a wife, two children whom I watch growing, and a dog.
I am not bound to anything in particular.
Of the 510,101,000 square kilometers,
the area of the Earth,
not a single kilometer is mine.
My only worry
is perhaps truly loving.
Perhaps burning with the one I love.
I believe in a dialogue with light,
in a dialogue with the Earth,
to exalt the senses.
I began to write poetry at the age of 15.
I think it cures us of a certain disillusion,
of a certain melancholy,
and it allows us, although fleetingly,
to recover things lost:
it helps us to understand a little
the sense of what is properly human.
I like the sea, books,
marijuana, strong liquor.
I like to recall my friends.
I like music, night, roads.
I have crossed my fingers and taken a deep breath.
I have shared with the sunsets
the glory of being nothing.
At my age in the struggle
to get I don't know where,
I have never envied anyone.
Only the air knows the end of the way.
Very deep in me I keep the hope
that death is no more than a mirage.