To My Friends

In Latin culture there is a devotion to friendship. There is a moment, in really good parties, when you are tired of dancing, that someone takes out a guitar and we sing songs about friendship.

Friends and no one else. The rest: a jungle.  Jorge Guillén, Spanish Poet

Translation to English of the song "A Mis Amigos." (To My Friends) by Alberto Cortez, sung by Facundo Cabral and Alberto Cortez

You can watch/listen to this song at the bottom of this post.

I am indebted to my friends for their tenderness and their words of encouragement and the hugs... and splitting the bill which life presents us - step by step - with all of them.

I am indebted to my friends for their patience in tolerating the sharpest thorns, the bursts of temper, the negligence, the vanities, the fears and the doubts.

Sometimes friendship seems like a fragile paper boat, but the most violent storm can't destroy it, because on that paper boat, as captain and steersman, holds on to the steering wheel... a heart, a heart, my heart.

(the heart of [names of friends], the heart of a friend I call master, because every time I talk with him I learn four or five words I didn't know before.)

I am indebted to my friends for the annoyances that have disturbed some times our harmony. We all know it can't be a sin, to sometimes argue about small things. 

To my friends I will leave, when I die, the legacy of my devotion on a note of my guitar and, among the forgotten verses of a poem, my poor incorrigible soul of a cicada.

Sometimes friendship seems like a fragile paper boat, but the most violent storm can't destroy it, because on that paper boat, as captain and steersman, holds on to the steering wheel... a heart, a heart, my heart.

My friend, if this song, like the wind, wherever you want to listen to it, speaks to you, you will be a plural, because feelings are not exhibited when friends are carried in the soul.