It's always late
to begin the journey.
That's why I write.
Instead of burning upon the ground
and watering myself down among wellsprings and oceans,
I write.
My foot didn't plunge its nude sole
through sparkling autumn leaves,
nor on the dune of time
my pulse was stuck
waiting for the night, petrified
by the shivery cold
of dreams already gone.
Just a majestic me,
devoid of signifier and signified,
is raised up between pages
of evenings melted over low heat
and mornings besieged by inscrutable
camanchacas.
That's why I write.
Not because I wrote I write,
not because I lived I write,
not because Lihn, Óscar,
Gabriela, María Luisa, Donoso,
or the terror of Decree 300.
I write because it's always late,
because everything remains
more o less immovable,
because the tiny wheel of time
spins to the rhythm of cyclic redundancy
and there's no reboot to solve it.
Because the budget
is still enough for one word or two
before the last auction.
