Don't Play it Safe by Mario Benedetti (1920-2009)

Mario Benedetti 
Don’t Play it Safe (Don't Save Yourself)

Don’t stand idle
at the side of the road
don’t hold off on happiness
don’t love with half a heart
don’t play it safe now
or ever

don’t play it safe
don’t fill up with calm
don’t take cover from the world
in a quiet corner

don’t let your eyelids come down
like a weighty sentence
don’t forget you have lips
don’t sleep but to rest
don’t ignore the blood in your veins
don’t think you have no time

but if in any case
you can’t help it
and hold off on happiness
and love with half a heart
and play it safe now
and fill up with calm
and take cover from the world
in a quiet corner
and let your eyelids come down
like a weighty sentence
and dry up without lips
and sleep not to rest
and ignore the blood in your veins
and think you have no time
and stand idle
at the side of the road
and play it safe

in that case
don’t hold on to me.

The Uruguyan poet Mario Benedetti,  is amongst the most important Latin American literary figures of the 20th century.  

Not well known in the West, Benedetti was forced into exile by the Uruguayan military junta in the 1970’s for his leftist writings and forced to live in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and then Spain. He returned to Uruguay after the restoration of democratically-elected governments in the 1980’s.

Previous blog pieces on Benedetti are here and here.