A Poem For The Volunteers

If we cannot embellish the years, making of them
full strings of wondrous light
nor have it in our power to put a halt to time and
believe that the horizon will always be propitious to us
let us at least think of life as a place
of possible clarity, and let us live it
fully enough that it be obliged to release
unexpected echoes and to reveal
all of its tenderness.

For this mysterious, ductile space
We are all responsible as if it were
a child’s hand or a challenge and it is time
to take on its vigour and beauty
putting our hands, will and insight
to the test, regretting nothing,
doing all we must with determination,
knowing ourselves to be our own, solicitous masters.

So that desires, wishes and dreams
will make us lose neither sleep nor hope,
and so across the intimate sea of silence
far from shouts and declamations and hubbub
we will obtain the placid harmony
of those who know how to love, revelling
not in their own joy, but in that of others.

Miquel Martí i Pol

Poem sent to Dr. Kang Hyun Lee, president of IAVE from Ms. Montserrat Sans, the widow of the author, Mr. Miquel Martí i Pol, at the ceremony of the Presentation of IAVE Youth Office in Catalonia. This poem is a testimony of the implementation and long tradition of volunteering in Catalonia.

Poem translated from the Catalan by Mr. Mathew Tree.

Barcelona, 12 June 2008.