Dear Papillon,
I have seen many butterflies since summer broke out. I have also seen them in places where I thought, “Of course poor things! While you only live for one day you might as well have chosen a better place to spend it instead of the flower beds at Exit 25 of the ring road!”
But what do those know, they don’t know it’s the junction. They are born there and do their best to make the world (even Exit 25) a nicer place.
Of course, even if one day is short, they could move, go at least to live by the sea.
For humans it’s different they have roots…. No wait those were the trees. Humans have legs, and legs are actually made to go elsewhere, although lately I’ve been wondering, “but elsewhere where?!”
Which then when you think about it humans are strong, when they get into it too they make the world a beautiful place. They resist everything, stubborn eh! They have this ability to want to survive, even when they have nothing left, even when they have no food, even when they are being shot at when they are just looking for food.
Take for example what is happening in Palestine, I when I think that there is someone there who has been surviving all this time, since all this madness started, I feel a fiery anger. A cry-like pain rises from my stomach that I can’t scream. I resent all this bullying of those who think they have the right to take another’s life. And I’m also mad at all those who say nothing.
And I end up feeling tired, I feel dizzy because even though I rack my brain I can’t figure out how to do it, I can’t even find the words.
Words are important and some much more than others. Lately I seem to hear the same ones over and over again: future, rearmament, defense, economy, war.
Glass slogans, words that contradict themselves, mystify reality and terrify us perhaps with the sole intent of not making us use our heads (or legs).
However, in the midst of so many meaningless words, I would like to find others that really make sense.
Maybe that’s why-and because of what Iosif Brodsky said, that a person who reads poetry is less easily defeated than one who doesn’t-that I was reminded of something a Spanish poet named Laura Casielles wrote:
Finding the fundamental words. Learn
how to say forgiveness in the language of those who break in,
and good morning, and take
and I’ve come to meet you, learn
how to say thank you in the language
even of those who destroy
and who also
unravel,
how to say
coffee, love, homeland
shalom, salam aalaikum, learn
how to say come, enter, this is my home
in a country south of which barely
ruins remain, learn
obrigada, spasiba, learn
which colors do not exist in the languages of Africa.
And how to say yes to Beijing.
Arriving in cities and discovering
the secrets of the market,
understanding,
learning
what is in each land
the etymology of anima, and how
my great-grandparents greeted fear.
Finding the basic words.
And then talking.
Ilaria
Leave a Reply