! Que vivan los dias libres ! Fascinated by the color of the sky, he told me that he would return...and yet 27 years later i still sit here and wait. He found the color of the sky to be so refreshing that he had to surround himself with it. I tried to explain to him in a panicky and frantic voice, i stumbled over my words and i jittered that "it" had to do something with the mixing of gaseous molecules, and that the color actually wasn't real, "well not that it wasn't real" i spitted, "i mean you can clearly see that the sky is blue, but if you tried to reach the blue you would never make it and that you would end up in space where you would freeze and probably explode, well that is if you could escape the Earth's atmosphere where instead you would burn into a crisp and disintegrate", and i went on mummbling that his mother dearly loved him, and well that i didn't want to see him go either, "so please try to think it over" ! ! ....and as i turned and uttered these final words he leapt into the sky and disappeared over and under some clouds, somewhere in between here and there he had jumped......that night i slept under the open sky.


The next morning i climbed to the highest branch of the tallest tree that i could make out with my untrained eye, and gave listen to the sky. I sat for hours perched up high, cupping my ear and listening, just listening, just listening, just listening, just listening, just lis t e n i n g to the sky that whisked and whipped up clouds. Over time i built a treehouse in this now grandeous and generous of a tree that grew strong and mighty, pushing me higher attempting to aid in my efforts. How i was thankful. I built and built, higher and higher, constructed higher and higher, and so on and never did reach your stature. I feared the worst, i dreamt of finding your bones ontop a passing cloud, with a pencil in one hand and a notebook in the other, poetic till the end you were. ***** Dedicated to Victor Jara, dedicado a la tremenda figura Chilena, Victor Jara *****



Monday, October 17, 2005

He had been running for close to a week, perhaps a little less, but give or take a few days, it was something extraordinary. Extraordinary because he had done it all at night, running just fast enough to keep up with the spin of the Earth on its axis. He had stopped because he had come across the most fascinating of bridges, a tiny unkempt wooden bridge that ran over the quietest of brooks, a small stream that played home to several families of turtles, toads, fish and oh yes, dragonflies, those spaceships that hover in such a peculiar manner, directing themselves forwards and backwards, diagonal, left and right, always in the direction of survival. This tiniest of bridges creaked and moaned with the mellowest of breezes, breezes that couldn't drive a snow storm, couldn't rustle the leaves in autumn, and on this night, could not blow the seeds off of a ripe dandelion that sat nestled in between a few pebbles at the waters edge. Coming to the foot of this delicate path lite by only the glowing moonlight, he noted how the wood was aged and decaying, punctured with holes that saw through to the stream and cracks that housed rainwater from storms that must have fallen weeks ago. The bridges damp dark cold wooden frame lay splintered with what appeared to be sowing needles, but that upon touch would disintegrate into dust that fell like snow. Seeking rest and refuge, he made his way underneath this bridge where the soil meet the water in a sort of peace treaty. There he found a single rock big enough to sit comfortably on. Damp and humid buzzing with tiny nocturnal insects and the silent chirping of crickets, he began to write, "que si que esto que el otro, que nunca que ademas, que la vida es mentira, que la muerte es verdad..." (about this and that and the other, that never and that also, that life is sadly a lie and that death is so very real)




Twenty-first of April, Two thousand and five.

Falling asleep against a hard wooden headboard, his stomach empty without a morsel of food. His heart even emptier without the touch and feel of his mother's caresses. Father had passed on a few years ago. Only the rustling of treetops reminded him of his spirit. I tell a sad tale, a somber story of a child that never learned to play but in his dreams and when he shifted the mounting dust that gathered at the lamp table to the right of his frail body, limbs limp without excitement. The man with the guitar had sung to him a song of falling asleep for a long journey to see his father and sunken hopes he had had of holding him in his arms. Five sunsets and four sunrises occurred and still the only sound was that of the mice scurrying on the ceiling boards above his bed. It was a windy and temperate night; the moon weaved in and out of ghostly clouds and threatened to consume the night sky. His tears streaked down his neglected face like streams running dry in the hot desert sand. Sometime in between his sobbing and hunger pangs he had fallen asleep. How he slept. The room enclosed him like a dark wooden coffin. At his feet lay a forest green wool blanket that his grandmother had sown for him years and years ago. She laid now one with the earth far from this house, he had but once seen her gravestone that lay next to her husbands, his grandfather. A barely legible engraving read "together in life, together in death". How he longed to lie next to them. "Separate in life, together in death", he whispered under his breath. How he slept. He arose with a tapping at the foggy window glass. He shuffled to his feet, his big toe bulging out of his left sock. With the sleeve of his already dirty shirt he circled the glass and cleared a window in the glass. It took nothing to recognize his father on the other side, his smile bright and honest with love and trust. His father's eyes blacker then the night surrounding them, glistened with the brightness of a new life. His hair, his father's hair like he had remembered it. With all his weak might he was able to lift the window, just enough for him to squeeze through the tight gap. Falling to the cold wet grass mixed with mud and bugs he felt his fathers strong arms pick him up with soft hands made for taking care of him and his tender heart. How he slept. Oh how he slept. His father lifted him so high above that he felt he was drifting amongst the stars. His father twirled and circled him around like a merry-go-round, a mixture of laughter and crying, smiles and tears. And with that they drifted away with a gust of wind. A streaking ghostly mass slipped into the darkness that night, without a sound or detection. How he slept that night. Never to awaken. And though his heart stopped beating that windy temperate night alongside the sound of overgrown tree branches tapping at his window glass, he leapt for joy. His physical body lying next to his grandparents and father, his love and thoughts dancing amongst the willows and oaks. He thought himself free at last.


A Few Impressions on March Twenty-Ninth Two Thousand and Five

Talk and listen to an old person, and when i say old i mean someone you know that is not going to be around much longer. How many of us read books ? How many of us flock to Barnes&Noble, thirsty for a good story ? How many of us turn to a person of age for a good story ? A good laugh? A good cry? If you think about it, the elderly are walking experiences... lifetimes of sights, sounds, visions, recorded in a human mind. In essence, an interactive book of sorts, each unique. I believe that before each person passes away, their lives and experiences should be recorded in writing. Imagine a huge library (like the library of congress), housing the life experiences of every human. A library of human lives. Think of the countless human experiences that you and i will never know, for the simple lack of having the chance opportunity to meet that person in our lifetime. Every second, a person dies that you and i never knew. Never knew their loves, their hates, never had the opportunity to learn from them, to understand what they feared all their lives....and what made them smile. Sometimes i read through the posts and wonder why when given the opportunity to express our creative ideas and intellectual thoughts, we instead choose to merge into the cookie-cutter layout, which for the most part is not an important part of who we really are as people driven by inquisitive minds and relentless hearts ? Whether I have taken this idea too far, i will leave up to you. And by leaving that to you, i have accomplished my goal, to have you ponder something you may not have come across in your intellect, maybe sparking a new idea in your mind that i have not thought of, and this is how we grow as individuals and as a people.

March Twenty-Fifth, Two-thousand and Five

Today my life changed forever.. . . .Thinking back, my earliest memory of my father was falling asleep as a baby on his chest. I remember the smell of his aftershave and the velvet material of his sweater rubbing on my cheek, the rhythm of his heart, and the warmth of his breathe were all a sweet lullaby to me. On any given day, sitting quiet in a dark still room i can smell, feel, and hear them as clear as then. The gleaming of sunrays against jagged metallic surfaces signify the flourishing of another spring that spells yet another cycle of life. My father would lay on the floor next to my bed and tell me a story or just talk to me about life as i lay in bed falling asleep. His soft voice and funny sense of humor would send me drifting into dreams that would defy even your imagination. To this day i carry a small radio with me to bed, because inside i long for his soft voice to quite me to sleep. Fallen raindrops cannot describe the descent that my heart and soul have taken. Its strange how window curtains rustle and quiver in a dark room even when the window is closed and the air is still. Dust and fabric particles weave in and out of my breath like phantoms. Today my father was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. When the person that you love most in this world is given a percentage chance of living, and you are helpless, you are never the same. And that is why, today has changed me forever...Rotten wooden floors creek and moan with passage and yet the old house that they give structure to, remains unchanged. . . .