I leaned back in the deck chair and closed my eyes,
And my destiny loomed like a cliff in my soul.
My past life mingled with that of the of the future,
And at some point a noise reached my ears
From the smoking lounge: the chess game must have ended.

Ah, tossed
In the feeling of the waves,
Rocked
In the comforting idea that today is still not tomorrow,
That at least right now I have no responsibilities,
That I don't have a personality as such but just feel myself here,
On this chair, like a book left by the Swedish lady . . .

Ah, sunken
In the torpor of the imagination, no doubt a bit sleepy,
Peacefully restless,
Suddenly analogous to the child I once was,
When I played at the house in the country and didn't know basic algebra,
Let alone the algebra with x's and y's of the emotions . . .

Ah, all of me yearns
For that moment of no importance
In my life.
All of me yearns for that as for other analogous moments--
Those in which I had no importance at all,
Those in which I grasped, without the mind, the complete emptiness of existence,
And there was moonlight and sea and solitude, O Alvaro.