The Night of the Patient Moon

Dear mother and father and old and young people of my home. Dear pets and weeds and flowers and footfalls. I write to you in a script speckled with time. I write to the language of a poet and many who chanted after her. I quote those verses which are laments, songs, praises, and warnings. The laments are about not being of your skin, your tongue, your high heaven. The songs are about television screens, newsprint din, and the men with the megaphone going around shutting people’s windows down. The praises are to those that wear spotless clothes, hidden weapons, buck-skin shoes, and plastic faces. The warnings are about daring to speak, daring to say I’m two languages not one, I’m three faces not one, and I’m a quarter bile not full. Dear people of my city, town, lane, and invisible spaces, tell me, how do I return to you? It is the night of the patient moon. But the doorkeepers are asking for proof that I lived here, the watchful voices are mocking my 
wandering toes, and the vigilantes are simply admiring their righteous claws.

Fragment of Anima Writes a Letter Home, by Nabinda Das.

Un sol espejo

Ayer soñé que cantaba mientras te daba un beso. Mi voz entraba en tí por la boca en vez de llegarte por los oídos. Me escuchabas con la lengua y te dabas cuenta de que había un leve sabor de mar en mi voz. Cantaba dándote un beso. Mis manos también estaban mojadas. La sal de mis labios despertaba en tí una sed multiplicada. Y esa sed te hacía ir de una de mis vidas a la otra. Y cantaba por todas partes, llenándote con mi voz. Llegó un momento en que mi voz, como un líquido brillante, salía también de tu boca. Se desbordaba cubriéndote. Pero en realidad debería decir cubriéndonos. Cambiaba la memoria de nuestra piel. Transformaba todo en nosotros, incluso nuestro presente. Nos asombrábamos ante quiénes éramos ahora. Y nos reconocíamos con entusiasmo, casi a gritos: somos los anhelos que vivieron dentro de nosotros. Somos dos azares separados que vivieron con sed uno del otro. Sólo ahora, en estos cuerpos prodigio de ensoñación, hemos podido encontrar de nuevo una ternura olvidada. Estábamos anhelantes, ocultos, resignados. Ahora nos enciende una alegría y una sed inocentes. Un sol espejo invocó al nuestro. Así decía mi canción, mientras te daba un beso y todo comenzaba de nuevo.

Una variación de perspectiva en torno a "Segundo Sueño", En los labios del agua, de Alberto Ruy Sánchez.

Les Mots IX - Arqueología de un botín

To a-once-fourteen-year-old-boy called Josh.  

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste

... But if the while I think of thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

- Sonnet XXX

I have unearthed a name
Like a lost treasure
I'd been searching for
for decades

I have unearthed a name
After many painstaking and failed quests
I turned to a different kind of compass
to help me find the right spot
I was close
But I almost merely stumbled upon it
in the end

But I did unearth the name
I have salvaged and restored it
for that Her within me
who lost is so long ago

That name she never got to smile hello to
That name she almost chose
not to kiss goodbye

I have unearthed that name
for that Her within me
who didn't know
how to look into the eyes of its bearer
For that Her within me
who didn't know how to use her voice
as a messenger
for a tantamount heart

I have unearthed that name
for that Her within me
who was too afraid
and too young
to know her own worth

I have unearthed The Name
I have salvaged The Voice
restored The Face and The Gaze
and recovered all those gestures
that I didn't remember
that I didn't remember anymore
But knew right away

I have unearthed a name
Not the first name
but the last
The exact coordinates that revealed
the map I'd been missing
for far too long
And have found perhaps too late

I have unearthed a last name
The First Name I have dwelt in
all along

Books I've parted with

Suddenly finding the book I've long been searching for, or having the book I've been thinking about appear right before me, feels like there is some sort of fate. Like there's a God of Old-Book Markets setting up a happy encounter with the book I long for. I had the feeling that he was setting me up with books I had long ago parted with.

Voz y rostro de una Otome in The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, directed by Masaaki Yuasa

Tutte queste piccole magie (e su i vecchi fantasmi)

Amo la pioggia d'estate
l'aria di quiete e di libertà
Amo l'odore dell'acqua
su questa terra affamata

Amo la pioggia d'estate
questa città che ascolta
le voci di vecchi fantasmi
i palazzi e i suoi silenzi

Amo l'odore dell'acqua
su questa terra brusciatta
qualcuno che sorride e non parla
e con gli occhi mi abbracia

(e provo a non dimenticare
che la felicità abbraccia già questa vita)

Not quite Carmen Consoli's Piccola magia

A matter of Grace

A summer storm
Graces all of me
Highway warm
Sing silent poetry
And I could bring you the light
And take you home into the night

(Lately, I just can’t seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now, it’s just a matter of grace)

Preacher in the Grey Cap y la cuarta dimensión

¿Qué es la meditación? Fue lo primero que dijo después de que me pidió permiso para sentarse en mi mesa -tan llena de mí-, sacándome del éxtasis creativo en el que me encontraba sumida.

En medio de la confusión sobre las intenciones de ese desconocido, I thought that the question could be addressed through an array of answers, a very wide color spectrum: but No, he said, No, la meditación es, y grábatelo bien: and then something I should remember very clearly and do but not in words: the journey through the self to some absolute truth which, in my opinion, is both absolute & absolutely relative: so many truths to learn, so many guises and shapes and sounds that make up an infinite number of different melodies through which that one truth manifests itself.

Being an absolute relativist myself, and having been trained in post-modern philosophical thought, I felt very uncomfortable with the word Truth, con su mayúscula tan imperativa. Still, I have never quite grasped that stuff about the 4th and 5th and 9th and etc. dimensions, something he did not promise to explain but kept talking about as though I understood it all: Reality is the fourth dimension. Piensa, repiensa, reflexiona, y... actúa? or another couple more non-negotiable instructions, which I unfortunately forgot rather soon, la sobreintelectualización being uno de los males de los cuales intento deshacerme en los últimos tiempos.

I do believe, though, he was right about something: Love is not a word, it is a fact. Factum, non verbum, haciendo gala de su erudición. Elaborando al respecto: Love is not love which makes a sound that does not reverberate. Anzi, Love is not a sound: it is an act. Como diría ese sabio y afamado cantante, El amor, amigues míes, es verbo, no sustantivo. Maybe, if I am misinterpreting correctly, the fourth dimension could be the dimension of the Reality of Love.

Aprende a amarte para que puedas amarnos: de todas las cosas que me ordenó que me aprendiera de memoria, ésta es la única que recuerdo con absoluta claridad.

Immagine per occhi divini

Sabbia a perdita d'occhio, tra le ultime colline e il mare - il mare - nell'aria fredda di un pomeriggio quasi passato, e benedetto dal vento che sempre soffia da nord.

La spiaggia. E il mare.

Potrebbe essere la perfezione - immagine per occhi divini - mondo che accade e basta, il muto esistere di acqua e terra, opera finita ed esatta, verità - verità - ma ancora una volta è il salvifico granello dell'uomo che inceppa il meccanismo di quel paradiso, un'inezia che basta da sola a sospendere tutto il grande apparato di inesorabile verità, una cosa da nulla, ma piantata nella sabbia, impercettibile strappo nella superficie di quella santa icona, minuscola eccezione posatasi sulla perfezione della spiaggia sterminata. A vederlo da lontano non sarebbe che un punto nero: nel nulla, il niente di un uomo e di un cavalletto da pittore.

Alessandro Baricco, Oceano Mare.

But there is still such beauty

What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty. Twilight in the altered world, a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in a parking lot in the mysteriously named town of St. Deborah by the Water, Lake Michigan shining a half a mile away. Kirsten as Titania, a crown of flowers on her close-cropped hair, the jagged scar on her cheek-bone half-erased by candlelight.


Fragment of Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.

Les mots VIII - Articulate with the tongue of all the world

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
Not we, -articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.

Longing alone is singer to the lute.



Fragment of a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Les Mots III - Un altro paradiso

And solitude, a wild solitude
’s reveald
- Childhood's Retreat, Robert Duncan

The word solitude
speaks of paradise:

Vast
calm lakes
filled with reflections
undisturbed

Winds dancing with leaves
free
and storms wild

Moonlight and sunlight
alter nothing
but the color of light

The word solitude
speaks of peace
It speaks of happiness

Stars aren't always fixed

Story let me die

Get to the garden and leave your body outside

Story let me live

Stars aren't always known nor fixed for all children

(Who'll leave us better told?

Would have to say our names like they've never been before

Like the oldest book that gets new life with a new title

Rush right past the words to the symbol)

A little bit of almost New Myth, by Lia Ices

Orpheus's doubt

There's something about Orpheus' descent to Hades I'd never quite understood. Actually, it doesn't really have to do with his descent but rather with his and Eurydice's ascent back to life. It all seemed pretty simple, didn't it? All he had to do was walk out. Walk out, and not look back. That was it. He is unable to accomplish that, though, we all know that, and Eurydice remains in death while Orpheo is expelled from Hades.

Yet, why was it so important that he didn't turn back? Why did Hades asked that of him? What could be so troublesome and tragic about it? I'd never quite understood that, until recently. I'd never quite understood something that perhaps ain't as simple as walking: doubt. And the potential harm doubt contains which, when released, when enacted, or reenacted, might take the shape of a bomb, and expand in destruction around it. In destruction of what was already achieved, and of the possibilities that were potentially kept within that.

In Monteverdi's aria, Eurydice sings, right after Orfeo has given in to doubt and turned around: Ah, vista troppo dolce e troppo amara! Cosí, per troppo amor dunque mi perdi? Something like Oh, too sweet and too sour a vision! Is it thus that, because of too much love, you lose me? And here lies the other conundrum that puzzled me: how can love, too much love, be a cause of loss?

While Orfeo walks, in Monteverdi's opera, he first congratulates himself and his lyre for being able to move every heart in the underworld and gain Eurydice back, and then begins to savour the sweet company of his beloved which is so near at hand. But he then begins to doubt the gods, he thinks they might've played a cruel joke on him, he begins to think that maybe Eurydice isn't really following him, or that maybe the furies will try to steal her away from him. He begins to doubt, and doubt allows fear in. Both doubt and fear are fed by that very same and immense love, which in conjunction give birth to the ghost of loss. Orpheus hears a noise, and his fear is aroused. Lastly, fear causes him to break his promise to Hades and turn around, already convinced and scared that someone might be taking Eurydice away from him. But, alas! It is no one but himself who causes this loss. It is his doubt, followed by his fear, who inflict in himself the great pain of loss.

Trust, on the other hand, would've come in handy.

Y, disculparán sus mercedes el somewhat tacky clip y el súper tacky fondo musical, però, Christoffer Boe tuvo a bien retomar el mito hacia el final de su film Reconstruction. Sírvanse ustedes ir al minuto 2:30.

Las Horas X - El bosque de relojes

El maestro Hora volvió a sonreír.

- No, querida niña. Yo sólo soy el administrador. Mi obligación es dar a cada hombre el tiempo que le está destinado.

- ¿No podrías organizarlo de tal manera -preguntó Momo-, que los ladrones de tiempo no pudieran robar más a los hombres?

- No, eso no puedo hacerlo -contestó el maestro Hora-, porque lo que los hombres hacen con su tiempo, tienen que decidirlo ellos mismos. También son ellos quienes han de defenderlo. Yo sólo puedo adjudicárselo.

Momo recorrió con la mirada la sala y preguntó:

- Para eso tienes tantos relojes, ¿no? ¿Uno para cada hombre?

- No, Momo -contestó el maestro Hora-. Esos relojes no son más que una afición mía. Sólo son reproducciones muy imperfectas de algo que todo hombre lleva en su pecho. Porque al igual que tienen ojos para ver la luz, oídos para oír los sonidos, tienen un corazón para percibir, con él, el tiempo. Y todo el tiempo que no se percibe con el corazón está tan perdido como los colores del arcoiris para un ciego o el canto de un pájaro para un sordo. Pero, por desgracia, hay corazones ciegos y sordos que no perciben nada, a pesar de latir.

- ¿Y si un día mi corazón dejara de latir? -preguntó Momo.

- Entonces -replicó el maestro Hora-, el tiempo se habrá acabado para ti, mi niña. También se podría decir que eres tú quien vuelve a través del tiempo, a través de todos tus días y noches, tus meses y años. Regresas a través de tu vida hasta llegar al gran portal de plata por el que una vez entraste. Por allí vuelves a salir.

- Y, ¿qué hay del otro lado?

- Entonces has llegado al lugar de donde procede la música que, muy bajito, ya has oído alguna vez. Pero entonces tú formas parte de ella, eres un sonido dentro de ella.

Miró, inquisitivo, a Momo.

- Pero eso no podrás entenderlo todavía, ¿verdad?

- Sí -contestó Momo-, creo que sí.

Recordó su camino a través de la calle de Jamás, en la que lo había vivido todo al revés, y preguntó:

- ¿Eres tú la muerte?

El maestro Hora sonrió y calló un rato antes de contestar:

- Si los hombres supiesen lo que es la muerte, ya no le tendrían miedo. Y si ya no le tuvieran miedo, nadie podría robarles, nunca más, su tiempo de vida.

- No hace falta más que decírselo - propuso Momo.

-¿Tu crees? -preguntó el maestro Hora-. Yo se los digo con cada hora que les adjudico. Pero creo que no quieren escucharlo. Prefieren creer a aquellos que les dan miedo. Eso también es un enigma.

Fragmento de Momo, de Michael Ende. 

Moments of Being IV - El sueño de un recuerdo (or, the beginning is the end is the beginning)

Noche que sacas
las cuentas claras de tus estrellas
en los papeles que el río cala.
- Noche en el agua, Carlos Pellicer

Sometimes things have a strange, rather sad, rather cheerful perfection.

I'd forgotten I once was a firefly. I'd forgotten I once loved a poet. I'd forgotten I once had a dream.

Sometimes time has an astonishingly precise way of calculating itself, of beginning and reflecting and multiplying itself, of ending and beginning again. Time winks at me, and I wonder, what will I find beyond the new treshold.

Sometimes it's best not to know, not to anticipate anything at at all.

Escena de El amor de las luciérnagas. Fotografìa de Alfredo Millán. 

Gloaming

Todo atardecer tiene la cualidad de pintar con una tenue pátina dorada el ser de todas las cosas. O, tal vez, todo atardecer tiene la cualidad de revelar la tenue pátina dorada que se esconde detrás de todas las cosas. Incluso del aire.

Con toda seguridad en algún país, o en alguna religión, los habitantes y fieles detienen toda actividad y honran el breve misterio con devota fascinación. 

Con toda seguridad ese país, esa religión, han creado un nombre para reconocer ese fragmento del atardecer.

Alice dreams

Alice dreams of a time

the Queen knew just where it's at 

The flowers even sing

Well, her friend the caterpillar said

Don't you think it's time

to use some of your mind?

Alice's dream: Juri Hayasaka
Song & lyrics: Donovan

Medicine Wheel

I see a picture that interweaves in tapestry

with color threads and oyster shells and baby beads

Protect us from a foggy view

Medicine Wheel remind us now that we'll go through

'Cause it takes the colors we each hold

to make that wheel that we'll design, that we'll design

to make that wheel that we'll design, that we'll design

Cielo y quietud

Mis ojos ven la crueldad

pero no la dejan pasar

son de agua

limpian la verdad

Not exactly forbidden

I am always hungry

& wanting to have

sex. This is a fact.

If you get right

down to it the new

unprocessed peanut

butter is no damn

good & you should

buy it in a jar as

always in the

largest supermarket

you know. And

I am an enemy

of change, as

you know. All

the things I

embrace as new

are in

fact old things,

re-released: swimming,

the sensation of

being dirty in

body and mind

summer as a

time to do

nothing and make

no money. Prayer

as a last re-

sort. Pleasure

as a means,

and then a

means again

with no ends

in sight. I am

absolutely in opposition

to all kinds of

goals. I have

no desire to know           

where this, anything

is getting me.

When the water

boils I get

a cup of tea.

Accidentally I

read all the

works of Proust.

It was summer

I was there

so was he. I

write because

I would like

to be used for

years after

my death. Not

only my body

will be compost

but the thoughts

I left during

my life. During

my life I was

a woman with

hazel eyes. Out

the window

is a crooked

silo. Parts

of you

I think

of as stripes

which I am

learning to

love along. We

swim naked

in ponds &

I write be-

hind your

back. My thoughts

about you are

not exactly

forbidden, but

exalted because

they are useless,

not intended

to get you

because

you love

me. It’s more

like a playground

where I play

with my reflection

of you until

you come back

and into the

real you I

get to sink

my teeth. With

you I don't know 
how to relax &

so I write

behind your

back. Which

is hard.

Nature

is out of control

you tell me &

that’s what’s so

ill about

it. I’m immoderately

in love with you,

knocked out by

your one

white hair

why should

something

I had never

known be the

very best there

is. I love

you from my

youth,

starting back

there when

one day stopped
being just like the

rest, sudden 
bond and
longing, constant

love, a light-

ning in the

middle of

the day,

a halted step

in the vastly

conventional

path of

the Sun. I

squint. I

wink. I

hesitate
before I
take the

ride.

Retailored version of Eileen Myles' “Peanut Butter”