6
I'm alone in the heart of Havana, the streets deserted. The Caribbean sun has long since left it, and the warmth, that hours before bathed this city, leeches slowly away like the tide. But something magical pulses still. Among the normal twilight sounds a city makes I hear a distant modulation in the air, a rhythm that gives tempo to my steps and leads them off. A few moments later I find myself in an alley, and by stoop and stride I face a door. When I open it, the indefinite rhythm of before becomes a panoply of melody and percussion bathed in a voice both sweet and melancholic. There's Omara Portuondo singing as only she can. The place is as empty as the streets outside and the voice seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I find myself by a table, a bottle of rum, an empty glass. Before I can take a drink I hear the first chords of "La Sitiera" and in that moment I feel your hand on my shoulder. I look to my side and find your eyes, and an enigmatic smile that says all that there is to be said. We move out to the dance floor, and there, surrounded by tables long ago abandoned, we enter the world that Omara weaves with her voice. I hold your body against mine, and you my gaze within yours, and we dance ever so slowly on these floating notes, on this the verdant ground of our daily communion.
5
Showing posts with label vignettes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vignettes. Show all posts
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Slowly
6
I climbed a tree today. Its been years since I've done that. People walking by on the sidewalk below looked at me as if I'd taken my clothes off. The birds flew to a nearby tree and from there watched me suspiciously. A column of ants descending a branch not so much as looked at me as they marched by, their little green flags held aloft like sails in the wind. How good, how secure I felt in the arms of that tree. What I most like about them is the pleasure they take in moving with infinite slowness.
5
I climbed a tree today. Its been years since I've done that. People walking by on the sidewalk below looked at me as if I'd taken my clothes off. The birds flew to a nearby tree and from there watched me suspiciously. A column of ants descending a branch not so much as looked at me as they marched by, their little green flags held aloft like sails in the wind. How good, how secure I felt in the arms of that tree. What I most like about them is the pleasure they take in moving with infinite slowness.
5
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Vignettes I
6
The beauty of a word that survives the destruction of the world without anyone there to speak or write it.
You find a tape recorder in the street. You hear a message telling you to turn it over. On the other side, you read another message, scratched with a knife in the metal, and realize that what it says no voice could ever have spoken into the machine.
My words have lost their sense. I see them float up into the air like balloons, spinning about uselessly in space. Months later they descend over Japan. Some guy plucks them out of the air with his fingers and eats them, one by one. He begins to write poetry and becomes famous. And here I am, mute, a sad clown with his gestures and grunts, interlocutor of dogs and hummingbirds.
The man at the counter sells oranges. He also sells the juice of these oranges. And pineapples, and the juice of pineapples. He is a fat man, sitting on a stool fanning himself. Along comes a prostitute. She is a vendor too, but she sneers at the fat man sitting on the stool. She too is filled with juice but she sells only the rind.
The false propriety of trees, standing erect and apart, while beneath, like young lovers at the table, their roots mingle.
I have been without purpose before, between the folds of starched percale sheets, wondering why my body hair grows only so long, pacing up and down a hallway. At the end of this hallway is a small window. From there I can see a bus stop, seven people waiting, their clothes indicating the direction of the wind, their shadows the position of the sun, their blank faces the hurtling steely purpose that approaches, lined with empty seats waiting to be filled.
5
The beauty of a word that survives the destruction of the world without anyone there to speak or write it.
You find a tape recorder in the street. You hear a message telling you to turn it over. On the other side, you read another message, scratched with a knife in the metal, and realize that what it says no voice could ever have spoken into the machine.
My words have lost their sense. I see them float up into the air like balloons, spinning about uselessly in space. Months later they descend over Japan. Some guy plucks them out of the air with his fingers and eats them, one by one. He begins to write poetry and becomes famous. And here I am, mute, a sad clown with his gestures and grunts, interlocutor of dogs and hummingbirds.
The man at the counter sells oranges. He also sells the juice of these oranges. And pineapples, and the juice of pineapples. He is a fat man, sitting on a stool fanning himself. Along comes a prostitute. She is a vendor too, but she sneers at the fat man sitting on the stool. She too is filled with juice but she sells only the rind.
The false propriety of trees, standing erect and apart, while beneath, like young lovers at the table, their roots mingle.
I have been without purpose before, between the folds of starched percale sheets, wondering why my body hair grows only so long, pacing up and down a hallway. At the end of this hallway is a small window. From there I can see a bus stop, seven people waiting, their clothes indicating the direction of the wind, their shadows the position of the sun, their blank faces the hurtling steely purpose that approaches, lined with empty seats waiting to be filled.
5
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The mirror behind your back
6
I don't know what I am about to write. So perhaps in this sense it will not do for you to call me a writer. How far, for example, does the artist's signature go in making him an artist? I've been leafing through a book on Frida Kahlo in which are included reproductions of her first love letters to Alejandro. Throughout the letters she illustrates particular emotions with drawings, herself crying, or a dove. Should I include one here? What visual image would be appropiate to what I am feeling right now? But this is silly. I don't love you. Who are you? You are perhaps someone waiting for a bus, or sitting on a toilet. In a spare moment you grab for something more appropriate, something answering to the needs at hand. Ordinary things, things without color, useless as the image of yourself in the mirror behind your back.
5
I don't know what I am about to write. So perhaps in this sense it will not do for you to call me a writer. How far, for example, does the artist's signature go in making him an artist? I've been leafing through a book on Frida Kahlo in which are included reproductions of her first love letters to Alejandro. Throughout the letters she illustrates particular emotions with drawings, herself crying, or a dove. Should I include one here? What visual image would be appropiate to what I am feeling right now? But this is silly. I don't love you. Who are you? You are perhaps someone waiting for a bus, or sitting on a toilet. In a spare moment you grab for something more appropriate, something answering to the needs at hand. Ordinary things, things without color, useless as the image of yourself in the mirror behind your back.
5
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