I LOVE YOU
by Mario Benedetti

(English Translation)

Your hands are my caress
my daily reminders
I love you because your hands
work for justice

if I love you it’s because you are
my love my accomplice and my everything
and in the street arm in arm
we are many more than two

your eyes are my spell
against a cursed day
I love you for your gaze
that looks and plants the future

your mouth that is yours and mine
your mouth doesn’t lie
I love you because your mouth
knows how to shout rebellion

if I love you it’s because you are
my love my accomplice and my everything
and in the street arm in arm
we are many more than two

and for your open face
and your wanderer’s footstep
and your weeping for the world
because you are of the people I love you.

and because love is not a halo
nor morality tale
and because we are a couple
that knows it is not alone

I love you in my paradise
which is to say that in my ideal country
people live happily
without even having permission

if I love you it’s because you are
my love my accomplice and my everything
and in the street arm in arm
we are many more than two

  translation: Nina Serrano

“Te Quiero”: versión original en español

Videos: La poesia de Mario Benedetti en musica

“Piernas“

“Te Quiero“

Categories: Uncategorized

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2 Responses

1. 

   Andrea:

   thank you for the translation! how beautiful a love that is powerful in many ways is

   10.06.2009 02:30

2. 

   heatherlydiajoffe:

   I’m looking for a bilingual (English-Spanish) or English-only book/collection of Benedetti’s poems that has I love you / Te quiero. Anyone know of an anthology where this appears in English? His Office Poems have been translated, but can’t find this one.

   04.10.2009 13:16