Translated by Ariel Francisco

Old Portrait

There was a time when I was dark.

My shoes
always too big
too heavy
or too small
marking the earth with one continuous footprint,
two parallel lines on which
all rain is useless,
all wind is hostile.

On my back
clinging to my neck
death as a wide-eyed girl
who sometimes watches me in the mirror.
Other times,
we played hide-and-seek
my right hand covering my eyes.

For a long time, I had
to give up being.

The soul is a cubicle
the rough palette
the sterile tongue
looking backward toward an old horizon
toward a time before it was

foreign to me
empty
absent.

Augury of the Wind

I asked for wind beneath my wings
and the wind answered
like a storm unleashed in the depths of the sea,
like a mountain’s shout
pulling me off the earth with two hands
and lifting me on the twisting air.

I no longer ask for winds or storms.

The wind is continued existence

I firmly ask
to be tethered to the earth
silently
to listen for the wind’s announcement
the audacity
to jump at just the right moment
and recall my wings
to stretch them out
in the vacuum.

Today

I walk barefoot and seed fire in my footprints.

I’ve traveled far in search of that light
that I’ve finally discovered
the entire quest is light
and in every word, there’s a new journey.

I’ve returned to life.

I am.

Interlude

We grow with every look and every word and every embrace
we grow in doubt and in despair
in nonsense and in joy we grow, too
and in fear and in horror and in tears.

Our hair and eyelashes grow
in the night while we sleep
and when we wake up, we know we’re alive
without knowing we’ve grown
one step closer to the last stop.

We grow in solitude and in company
—and also,
it’s not the same—
we grow alone and together.

We grow in greetings and at a distance
in astonishment and in terror
in motion and in stillness
in laughter and in abandonment

and nostalgia grows in blue shadows under our eyes
and sometimes love, and sometimes forgetting, makes us grow wings
and in this ongoing growth we’re endlessly reduced
until we die in every birth
and in each grief
we are born.

Here

Waking up
the weight of my body on my body
the pounding of my boxed heart
the ray of light caressing my shoulder
the deep breaths.

The inaccurate scenes of improbable dreams
eyes adjusting little by little
to a reality willing to list
the table the floor a book a window
the roof the walls the photos the lamp

again the body
the recognition of this body as a part of the chaos
the foot and hand the neck the waist
the mouth the ears the knees the arms
the thirst
the certainty of what’s new
the present unveiling itself

and once more
the only thing that matters is
this knowing this telling this seeing
this consciousness
of being here
and not knowing
for how long.

(Image: Cyrus Tang’s Sky Orchestra (2020))