La Marioneta

The following poem, enetitled "La Marioneta" ("The Puppet), was circulated in the internet a few years ago, as the farewell poem by the Latin American author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who had undergone treatment for lymphatic cancer earlier. This finally turned out to be a hoax. It was actually written by a ventriloquist named Johnny Welch. He later told that he felt humiliated that someone used his poem and, in a way, robbed him of the credit that was due to him.

However, whenever I read the poem, I've felt that the words are really true, though, if I remember it correctly, Gabo himself has called this poem "kitsch". The poem goes as follows:

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The Puppet

If for a moment God would forget that
I am a rag doll and give me a scrap of life,
possibly I would not say everything that I think,
but I would definitely think everything that I say.

I would value things
not for how much they are worth
but rather for what they mean.

I would sleep little, dream more.
I know that for each minute that we close our eyes
we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when the others loiter;
I would awaken when the others sleep.

I would listen when the others speak,
and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream.

If God would bestow on me a scrap of life,
I would dress simply,
I would throw myself flat under the sun,
exposing not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart,
I would write my hatred on ice
and wait for the sun to come out.

With a dream of Van Gogh
I would paint on the stars a poem by Benedetti,
and a song by Serrat would be my serenade to the moon.

With my tears I would water the roses,
to feel the pain of their thorns
and the incarnated kiss of their petals...

My God, if I only had a scrap of life...
I wouldn't let a single day go by
without saying to people I love,
that I love them.

I would convince each woman or man
that they are my favourites and
I would live in love with love.

I would prove to the men how mistaken they are
in thinking that they no longer fall in love when they grow old--
not knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love.
To a child I would give wings, but
I would let him learn how to fly by himself.
To the old I would teach that
death comes not with old age but with forgetting.
I have learned so much from you men....

I have learned that everybody wants to live
at the top of the mountain without realizing
that true happiness lies in the way we climb the slope.

I have learned that when a newborn
first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist,
he has caught him forever.

I have learned that a man only has the right
to look down on another man
when it is to help him to stand up.
I have learned so many things from you,
but in the end most of it will be no use
because when they put me inside that suitcase,
unfortunately I will be dying.

Translated by Matthew Taylor and Rosa Arelis Taylor
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Of late, due to some reason, I've been reminded of this poem, and hence today I dug it up.

Sure enough, we often regret things we said, and we wish we had not said these words! But we also regret things left unsaid; we regret our silence, for how many of us can guess when we are talking to somebody that this may be the last time we are talking face to face.

I don't mean death here, but separation.

One may get separated for life from a dear friend, and without any clue (when one is having the last round of talk with that friend) that there won't be another meeting such as this in this life.

As a drifter traveling from one place to another all througout my life, I've often faced such situations.

If only, humans could know the future!

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Source: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/marquez.html