The Utopia | Eduardo Galeano

What about we rave for a while
What about we fix our eyes
beyond the infamy
to surmise another possible world

The air is clean
from all venom that doen’t come
from the human fears
and from the human passions

On the streets the automobiles
will be crushed by the dogs
People won’t be driven by the automobile
nor will they be programmed by the computer
nor will they be bought by the supermarket
nor will they be watched by the TV either

The TV will stop being
the most important member of the family
and it will be treated like the iron or the washing machine

It will be incorporated
into the penal codes the crime of stupidity
that commit those who live to have or to earn
instead of living just to live, nothing else
like the bird sings not knowing what it’s singing
and like the child plays not knowing what he plays

In no country will be arrested the youngsters
who refuse to comply with the service
but the ones who want to comply with it
No one will live to work
but we all will work to live

The economists won’t call
standard of living the consumption level
nor will they call quality of life the amount of things
The cooks won’t believe that
lobsters love to be cooked alive

The historians won’t believe that
countries love to be invaded
The politicians won’t believe that
the poor love to eat promises

Solemnity will be no more
believed to be a virtue
and no one, no one
will take seriously no one
who is not capable
of pulling their own leg

Death and money
will lose their magic powers
and neither by death nor by fortune
will the scoundrel transform into a virtuous gentleman

Food won’t be a commodity
nor comunication a business
’cause food and comunication
are human rights

No one will die of starvation
’cause no one will die of indigestion

Street children
won’t be treated like if they were trash
’cause there won’t be street children
Rich children
won’t be treated like they were money
’cause there won’t be rich children

Education won’t be a privilege
of those who can pay for it
and the police won’t be the curse
of those who can’t buy it

Justice and freedom
Siamese twins sisters
condemned to live apart
will get together again, pretty close
back to back

In Argentina the crazy ones from Plaza de Mayo
will be and example of mental health
’cause thay refused to forget
in times of compulsory amnesia

The holy mother church will correct
some misprints in the tablets of Moses
and the 6-th commandment will order to celebrate the body

The church too will dictate another commandment
that God had forgotten:
"Love the nature of which you’re a part"

The deserts of the world and the deserts of the soul
will be reforested
The desperate will be waited for
and the lost will be found
’cause they fell into despair from waiting too long
and they got lost by searching so much

We’ll be compatriots and contemporaries
of all the ones that have
will of beauty and will of justice
were they born when were they born
and have they lived where have they lived
no mattering not even a bit
the frontiers of the map nor of time

We’ll be imperfect
’cause perfection will continue to be
the boring privilege of the gods
but in this world
in this world shoddy and screwed
we’ll be able to live every day
as if it were the first
and every night as if it were the last