All the Fires, the Fire (En)

"The fire, if left uncontrolled, devours; if tamed, it warms. The very same that burns forest and bakes bread, that lights up nights and reduces all to ashes. Such is sadness: a blaze that devastates, or a flame that tempers."

I wandered, letting my eyes drift over everything on that social network—post after post, image after image—perceiving the sensitivity of those who seek, in their photographs, the beauty of sunsets; of those who find companionship in capturing the phases of the Moon; and reflecting on the words of those whose day ended with a doubt translated into everyday poetry or a challenging question. Suddenly, I noticed something that resembled more a cry for help than a mere musing born of contemplation:

"I feel so broken, abandoned, and hurt to my core. I'm not looking for pity; I'm just trying to find meaning in the cruelty of someone who once claimed to love me but destroyed me like this."

There are moments when the heart quickens its beat—like when witnessing a violent scene in which the injured person lets forth a slow, thick, red flow of blood that invades the skin, soaks the clothes, and eventually stains the ground. Not everyone experiences it the same way: some watch from afar, paralyzed; others step forward to help, their own hearts thumping anxiously. I’d never have made a good doctor, yet the wounds of the soul disturb me in a different manner.

The words displayed on the tiny screen of my phone brought me a deep and grim resonance—a sound I rarely repeat, but which, once fully understood, gives me strength and propels me forward. The sadness left by a broken love is a language we’ve all spoken at some point, even though each of us pronounces it with a different accent. And so I wrote:

"Shattered at some moment, I thought that sadness was mine alone. And in watching couples—so deeply in love—I found injustice in the scales of destiny, which values little he who gives so much.

In the passages of life, sadness is not the only feeling; it is one among many—a feeling that refines and commands, that straightens and builds; thus, the tear that, with its salt, splits the undefended cheek is the same one that cleanses the gaze, allowing us to discern, beyond body and soul, the one destined to accompany us."
 
For the one whose soul feels lost, bleeding from its wound, enduring a long night and an unyielding bed… For the one who cannot stop moving, for the one to whom the shimmer of a tear—unbidden—brings that moment when the will finally shatters.
 
Know that it is so; know that it is the case for everyone. There are those who, like a child who cannot fathom how a toy works, clumsily dismantle the love that is given to them. That there are those who skillfully ignite the flame of love, yet never truly thought to make the most of it.
 
That malice, irresponsibility, or doubt… have no gender; that time undresses even the grandest lies; that not everyone is ready to understand or to give love. But around the corner—once the smoke has cleared, the message reformulated, with the image repainted in renewed vitality, the gaze made clearer and now adorned with a smile—there is a good wind, if you know which way your north lies.
 
Know that you are not alone—that almost all of us have been there, feeling that the end is but a stretch along the journey. That sadness remains the same, even though there may be different paths for the same battle. And that the fire which consumes you today will warm you tomorrow.
 
Know that I am with you. And with that which makes one cry, I have created this. And you?

 

 

“All the fires, the fire. All the sadness, the sadness.”

The Poorthry (En)

I think it was the day I heard the terribleness of her voice, that same night at Aldo’s house, transformed into someone she was not, possessed by the inescapable decision to place a solitary and inexplicable distance between our lives. Against the steps marked by promises, silencing the chords that sought to make eternal a shared song, she coldly asked me: “Can’t you be alone? Does everything have to be about the relationship?” as the conclusion to requesting that phase called… two months.

That day, something collapsed into a pit and was covered with earth. And among the countless cracks her voice left in me that night, breaking through, above all else, and letting the tired pain seep out through my lips, there he was—my friend, perhaps an unnecessary listener, irreproachably stoic—absorbing every confused word in the vagueness of his living room. He listened with such attentiveness… that his ear embraced me, and his embrace held up the fractured columns of my heart.

That night, on my way home, hours later, leaving his house, I began to know solitude. I saw the sad asphalt in an indeterminate sepia beside the lifeless sidewalk. Slow steps brought me to the threshold of my house, where I cast a final glance back at the street before the creak of the front door hinges locked me between its rust and its time. And I passed, finally passed, swallowed by what I was supposed to call home. Upstairs in my room, after dragging my soles up the kilometers of stairs, I saw fragments of a person in the mirror, with eyes solitary, lost, and loveless.

Later, the delicate frame of a life fell to the floor, leaving a trail of shards in the sound of an intimate crash that echoed for minutes and hours. And it wasn’t until a contest put order to the dark chaos of that imposed solitude—bouts of sadness, desperate incomprehension, silent tears learning the noise of striking the, once so distant, ground.

In that room, with its oversized television and bookshelves filled with colorful stories, its window with a view of the sky and a ceiling fan above, in that confined space, warm in winter and bearable in summer—now more a prison than a room, yet still a place for the repose of a life that probed the honest pulse of its heart. There, bent over the blanket still draped across my bed, sitting on a small stool inches from the ground, with an abrupt and dry jolt of agitation, sometimes moon, sometimes star, the ordinary space transformed… into an ethereal captivity for my inspiration.

Sea and sky, earth and firmament. New moon, full and waning, celestial aces with memories… trembling like lights found by eyes lost in the heights of the liquid night. Eyes that surrendered to clarity after the rain.

I came to know then that winged state where sadness anchors itself in the sea of a life. That state where melancholy drowns us in sensitivity, where we see with vulnerable passion the balance of days, the rigor of events, the pulse surrounding us; where the afternoon climbs the stairs and opens the door to our room… because life moves slowly in eyes fatigued from gazing. That state of complete defenselessness that purifies pain with the salt of tears—I called it Poorthry.

That time, which tamed me in the silence of the room, making it a vault for my stars and a sea for my storm, and Barranco the stage for the tremor of my steps lost in the slow and sorrowful night.

Poorthry, the poor poetry, born from the open trenches of every heartbeat of my love, spilling from my tears like an ancient rivulet soothing the ache in my heart.

DtMF

Puedo recordarme subiendo el volumen al oír una de sus canciones en la cocina de esa casa, en el cuarto piso, mientras lavaba los platos luego de un delicioso almuerzo; o en mi habitación rentada por esas fechas con los parlantes rojo y negro vibrando sobre el viejo piso de madera al mismo tiempo que la letra de la canción me hacía quemar la garganta por entonarla tan fuerte... y hasta cuando tomé una en especial —que hoy ya no me gusta escuchar, pues me trae vanos recuerdos: Me fui de vacaciones— porque en ese momento representaba toda mi alegría contenida detonando su woofer en mi corazón, que era el latido rítmico que necesitaba para hacer de un romántico reel algo tan personal y especial.

Casi un año y medio atrás de esos tiempos, casi a dos de estas fechas, tuve una postura distinta y opuesta a la actual, denostaba y califiqué al tal, recuerdo bien, como "ese reggaetonero de la mandíbula anestesiada", y echaba por la borda toda su música porque la advertí cargada de hez en la mayoría de sus letras. No había caído en cuenta del brillo escondido que guardaba... hasta que constantes voces me repitieron «D****, todas las canciones de su disco son buenas», o quizá, el más convincente: «primo, es que tienes que leer la letra». Y si tenía letra, algo instantáneamente sorprendente podría ocurrir. Y ocurrió... justo después de oír ese disco. Y mi vida notó ese ritmo, y adoptó como suyo el frenesí de su alegría, frescamente caribeña, salpicada de fogonazos de plástica poesía.

Es cierto que estos ritmos, los del reggaetón, desbordan sexualidad, grosería y liviano cliché entre sus letras. Es verdad también, que la democracia es la forma de gobierno de muchos países, y que, aprobada en casi todos, nos sumerge bajo sus formas, en cosas tales como... reconocer, que escoge la mayoría cuando se decide a qué restorán vas. Y que, la música sus letras y canciones, dirigidas por los pulgares arriba, tienen exactamente lo que piden las mayorías, lo que la democracia de su juventud exige, lo que su exigente público entiende vibrante o actual.

No quiero convencerte de que escuches este disco, pero, sin tu escucha o con ella, créeme, al menos para mí, a nueve de todas las canciones de este álbum les circula letra y ritmo de la vieja fórmula con que se creó la salsa mezclada al contemporáneo reggaetón, con títulos que se funden reclamando con nostalgia por alguien, por algún lugar, por el rescoldo pertinaz que pervive en alguna gente.

Con frases de antología como «La vida es una fiesta que un día termina, y fuiste tú mi baile inolvidable» o «En mi vida fuiste turista, tú solo viste lo mejor de mí y no lo que yo sufría...», esa mezcladora musical y de sentida poética de lo que respiramos en estos tiempos, el Conejo Malo, lo hace de nuevo en este disco. Y como leí una vez, pone el alma como sello a su obra: Alegre, poética, crítica e impregnada de nostalgia.

Algunas personas llevadas por el ostracismo cultural que supone la creencia que tienen o que han fijado tener, son privados voluntaria o involuntariamente de la experiencia de ver, de oír, de sentir. Para ti que has mandado cerrar la puerta antes que conozcas la visita, o que haces puchero al plato antes siquiera que sientas su aroma sobre la mesa, o peor, que renuncias por atávica creencia o respetuosa convicción, recuerda que "el arte es una experiencia que todos debemos vivir" y nada se califica sin tomarle antes respetuosa atención.

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¡'chacho deja eso!  

Bis o la señora Bis, que bien la recuerdo, me deja eterna la frase, que repetía con un canto que reconocí inmediatamente en el short film, cuando me pedía que no exagere con algo que hacía, como velar por la limpieza de su cocina. Luego de terminar el almuerzo, solo minutos después, ella me compartía de su pequeña y negra cafetera un shot de Minerva en una tacita blanca que no se podía sino asir delicadamente con el índice y el pulgar, para que a sorbos me coloreara la tarde con su particular aroma y sabor. Es, entiendo, para los habitantes de una parte de este mundo costumbre enraizada, cosa consabida... para mí, en cambio, la casualidad de haber llegado a una casa de personas que nacieron en una isla como la de Puerto Rico y que me incrusta el parecido de las culturas de estos países insulares del caribe y me hacen tan afín a ellos, de solo apreciar una imagen como esta.

Este corto video que sentencia con el título Debí Tirar Más Fotos, expresa además de una crítica a un país que ha perdido en parte su idioma por adoptar uno nuevo, o el grito descollante por la permanencia de la raíz de su cultura musical y popular sobre lo contemporáneo, una forma de vivir, amar y ser Carpe diem, que queda subrayado en diálogos como este:

- Debí tirar más fotos. Haber vivido más, Debí haber amado más... Cuando pude... Mientras uno está vivo... uno debe amar lo más que pueda.

Aunado a una percusión tan africana, tan boricua, tan isleña, que repite el coro de la penúltima canción de la lista, que es la que da a luz, potente y enérgica, la vida de su disco.

He conocido la salsa y el amor a estos sonidos que antes fueron guaracha o bolero, son cubano, o bomba y plena, en las fiestas de mi familia en los años noventa, gracias a un tío cuyo padre fue pescador, y que fue quien puso norte musical a estas veladas traspasadas de alegría y baile, salvadas del tiempo hoy en gastada fotografía. Los que para mí fueron Ismael Rivera, Héctor Lavoe, Pete «El Conde», Benny Moré o Santos Colón y un largo y soberano etcétera... dieron el molde a la cultura musical de mi oído. Y en las improvisaciones cantadas a coro y cuatro que recuerdo, la alegría de saber que mi guitarra, instrumento similar por ser de cuerda, también servía para esa explosión de júbilo que romántico o expansivo podía tocar, era vida, o «pura vida» como se dice en Costa Rica.

A este tenor, el cuatro y su espiral de delicada nota es cúspide sentimental en la canción Turista, que sacude de emoción setentera con su introducción de sabio punteo, cuya letra, ya en su primera línea anticipa que más que canción oirás poesía. Es, quizá la parte más romántica, y traduce en el disco...

... junto a Pitorro de Coco, que dispone la alegría de cantar el triste coro de su letra, envuelto entre el bajo, la conga y el cuatro componiendo enérgico lamento contra la pasmada quietud de quienes no se levantan de su sitio para bailar...

 

...y a Bokete, que con liviano inicio musical, casi etéreo, camina o desanda a fraseos, los íntimos pasos de rutas que cada uno conoce muy bien y que dejan la nostalgia en desencadenado recreo al detonante gatillo del play para repetir cantando, rasgando quien sabe si solo la garganta, una y otra vez su coro y estrofa.

Alguna vez escribí acerca de una muchacha de Cuba, quien habiendo salido del lugar donde había nacido, no sabía ya cuál era el país donde sería más feliz en este mundo... y que todavía estaba risueña en su interrogante, cuando ese sentimiento por haber partido del lugar que le vio nacer mientras mencionaba su familia repartida en tantos sitios del orbe, y pensando en la bella composición de la tierra blanca de sus playas cubierta de transparente agua de mar, le cambió el tono de la sonriente voz por el de una sentida y naciente nostalgia.

Para los que, mientras andan o trabajan, sienten volver el espíritu a esas playas constantemente... y sueñan con ir a ver esas tardes de amatista del lugar donde nacieron, aunque sea unos días, porque lo recuerdan y sienten que hay algo en sus genes que posee el color de esa tierra, el clima de ese lugar, la sonrisa de esa gente que vive ahí con la alegría amaneciendo bajo ese cielo que contempla su mar... más allá de toda precariedad, para ellos... va esta canción. Y mezclado en la solución simultánea de su letra, para quienes tuvieron un paraíso con alguien y lo han perdido, al que solo pueden volver recordando, también va. Y lección para la siguiente: Debes tirar más fotos, muchas más. DtMF.

Aquí, un himno para pintar los días de tu verano, de tu vida, de tu estación.

Sentado en el pupitre de mi alcoba repitiendo como autómata en Spotify la misma canción, pienso en las muchas personas que confiesan, comentan o divulgan... qué les dejó el disco Bad Bunny (BB). Algunos dicen: «Cuando BB saca un disco me va bien, ya estaba esperando que salga», otro he leído: «Le faltaba alegría a mi vida, que venga el disco». Por mi parte, no hubo una etapa en la que sonreí más sino hasta cuando salió el disco anterior, plagado de frescura y sensación de playa... coincidencia o no, ahora, oyendo este, y pensando en la famosa ley de la conservación de la energía que reza que esta "no se crea ni se destruye, sino que solo se transforma", siento que cosas buenas están por venir.

«- Quisiera haber tirado más fotos, para enseñarte. Las fotos son momentos vividos, recuerdos de cosas que pasaron. Yo no era de estar tirando fotos por ahí, Ni estar subiendo stories, ni nada de eso. Yo decía que era mejor vivir el momento. Pero, cuando llegas a esta edad recordar no es tan fácil...
- Bueno, entonces, ¿vamo' a seguir viendo más fotos?
- ¡Ya te dije que no tengo tantas! Yo te voy a enseñar las que tengo. Y voy a tratar de recordar... las que no tiré. ¿OK?»

«Porque la vida... no es como la vives, sino como la recuerdas», así leí de Gabo. También, entonces, vale la pena conservar para el futuro algunas cosas importantes. Vivir y documentar van de la mano.

Gracias por llegar al final, gracias por la atención.

Y ya sabes:

«Debí tirar más fotos. Haber vivido más, Debí haber amado más... Cuando pude... Mientras uno está vivo... uno debe amar lo más que pueda.»

 
 
 
 

La regard vertical (Fr)

Cachée, derrière un voile nuageux dense et errant, tu te dévoiles furtivement, de manière intermittente, en une nuit où les préoccupations terrestres consument les heures ; ignorée et presque accessoire face aux lumières de la ville ; peut-être es-tu une pâle pièce payée par toutes les solitudes. Pourtant, à celui qui, obstinément, parvient à te trouver, tu offres ta compagnie, peut-être fatiguée déjà d’éclairer, Lune.

À peine au niveau de la mer, dans la plaine côtière de Lima, la plénitude estivale de cet endroit ne favorise pas ta présence constante. Et, même lorsque, pendant quelques minutes, tu deviens la seule lumière véritable du ciel nocturne, la plupart des gens ici passent leur samedi soir en exigeant des heures qu’elles leur rendent chaque minute vécue. Il y a des coins où se lisent sur des visages l’impatience de l’aube, cherchant la joie de la nuit dans des bouteilles d’alcool, des enfants dépensant leurs dernières forces à jouer sous la gloriette d’un parc, tandis qu’une personne, réfléchissant en silence, balance doucement le temps sur une balançoire en bois ; des gens qui passent, qui viennent, qui poursuivent le rythme de la nuit fraîche, en route vers chez eux ou vers une maison quelconque de ce lieu, leurs regards horizontaux fixés sur la lumière des réverbères.

Dans cet endroit, de fine herbe et de bancs de ciment, mon regard s’égare vers le ciel. Il vient, inlassablement, te chercher, minutes après minutes, jour après jour, avec l’espoir de te contempler, sachant qu’avant la fin de l’année, tu te retireras, une de ces nuits.

Je ne discute plus la tendresse que je vois dans les amours. Je ne m’en réjouis ni ne m’en plains en les observant. Mais je suis impressionné, oui, par la beauté des couples âgés qui ont su ajouter le temps à l’expression de leur amour, si différente de la flamme romantique des baisers nés pour être intensément éphémères.

Je me demande, cherchant à travers l’obscurité profonde du ciel, si mes yeux méritent ta compagnie, si, dans ce passage nocturne, là, derrière les nuages, lumineusement solitaire, tu as décrété que tu ne mérites pas d’être regardée. Je te cherche, avec une constance presque amoureuse, et, pouvant enfin te voir, lumineuse et pleine, ayant gravi plus haut que les nuages, mes yeux t’écrivent cette patience romantique qui n’a cessé jusqu’à te trouver, pour que mes mots puissent enfin décrire ta présence affectueuse, ta compagnie tant attendue.

Je me demande.
Mes yeux méritent-ils ta compagnie ?
Mérites-tu mon regard ?
Je te cherche.
Mes yeux t’écrivent ma patience…
Mes mots décrivent ta présence… 

Finalment écrasé... XD

DtMF (En)

I can remember turning up the volume while listening to one of his songs in the kitchen of that house, on the fourth floor, as I washed the dishes after a delicious lunch; or in my rented room during that time, with the red-and-black speakers vibrating on the old wooden floor as the song’s lyrics burned my throat from singing them so loudly... and even when I took one song in particular—which I no longer enjoy listening to today because it brings back hollow memories: Me fui de vacaciones—because, at that moment, it represented all my bottled-up joy exploding through its woofer into my heart, which became the rhythmic beat I needed to turn a romantic reel into something so personal and special.

Almost a year and a half before those times, nearly two years ago now, I had a very different stance—one opposite to the current one. I dismissed and labeled the guy, I remember well, as "that reggaeton singer with the anesthetized jaw," and I tossed all his music overboard because I thought it was loaded with filth in most of its lyrics. I hadn't realized the hidden brilliance it held... until persistent voices repeated, "D****, all the songs on his album are good," or perhaps the most convincing one: "Hey bro, you have to read the lyrics." And if it had lyrics, something instantly surprising could happen. And it did... right after I listened to that album. My life caught that rhythm, and I adopted the frenzy of its joy as my own—freshly Caribbean, splashed with bursts of plastic poetry.

It's true that these rhythms, reggaeton ones, overflow with sexuality, crudeness, and lightweight clichés in their lyrics. It's also true that democracy is the form of government in many countries, and that—approved by nearly all—it immerses us under its forms in things like... acknowledging what the majority chooses when deciding which restaurant to go to. And that music, its lyrics, and songs—guided by the thumbs-up of listeners—have exactly what the majority asks for, what the democracy of their youth demands, what their demanding audience deems vibrant or current.

I'm not here to convince you to listen to this album, but with or without your listening, believe me, at least for me, nine of its songs carry in their lyrics and rhythm a mix of the old formula that created salsa and contemporary reggaeton, with titles steeped in nostalgia—longing for someone, for some place, for the stubborn ember that survives in some people.

With anthology-worthy phrases as: "Life is a party that ends one day, and you were my unforgettable dance", this musical and poetic blender of what we breathe today, Bad Bunny does it again with this album. And as I once read, he puts his soul as a seal on his work: joyful, poetic, critical and imbued with nostalgia.

Some people, driven by the cultural ostracism they impose or have chosen to impose upon themselves, are voluntarily or involuntarily deprived of the experience of seeing, hearing and feeling. For you who have slammed the door before knowing who's visiting, or who make a face at the dish before even smelling it on the table—or worse, who renounce it out of atavistic belief or respectful conviction—remember that "art is an experience we all must live," and nothing can be judged without first giving it respectful attention.

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¡'chacho deja eso! ("Chacho, let that go!")

Bis, or Mrs. Bis, as I fondly recall her, leaves me with an eternal phrase she used to repeat with a tune I immediately recognized in the short film: when she'd ask me not to overdo something I was doing, like obsessing over keeping her kitchen clean. She'd share with me, from her small black coffee maker, a shot of Minerva in a little white cup, which could only be delicately held with the index and thumb, to sip it slowly while its particular aroma and flavor colored the afternoon for me.

It is, I understand, a rooted custom for the inhabitants of certain parts of the world—well-known to them. For me, however, it was the coincidence of having arrived in a household of people born on an island like Puerto Rico, embedding the resemblance between the cultures of these Caribbean Island nations and making me feel so connected to them, simply by appreciating an image like this one.

This short film, titled Debí Tirar Más Fotos (I Should Have Taken More Photos), expresses not only criticism of a country that has partly lost its language to the spread of a new one, or the resounding cry for the permanence of its musical and popular cultural roots...

But also, a way of living, loving, and being carpe diem, highlighted in dialogues like this:

- I should have taken more photos. I should have lived more. I should have loved more... when I could... While we're alive, we should love as much as we can.

Combined with that unmistakably African, unmistakably Boricua, unmistakably island percussion, the penultimate song on the tracklist gives life to this album—powerful and energetic.

I got to know salsa and my love for these sounds, which were once guaracha or bolero, Cuban son, or bomba and plena, at my family's parties in the '90s. Thanks to an uncle whose father was a fisherman, he became the musical compass of these evenings filled with joy and dance, preserved in time through worn-out photographs.

For me, names like Ismael Rivera, Héctor Lavoe, Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez, Benny Moré, or Santos Colón, and along, sovereign etcetera... shaped the musical culture of my ears. And in the improvisations sung in chorus and with a cuatro that I recall, the joy of knowing that my guitar, a similar instrument because it, too, is stringed, could also be part of that explosion of jubilation—whether romantic or expansive—was life itself, or "pura vida," as they say in Costa Rica.

In this sense, the cuatro and its spiral of delicate notes reach their sentimental peak in the song Turista, a track brimming with '70s emotion, beginning with a wise, masterful picking that foretells, from the very first line, that what you're about to hear is more than a song—it's poetry. This is perhaps the most romantic part, and within the album...

...alongside Pitorro de Coco, which stirs the joy of singing its sorrowful chorus, wrapped in the interplay of bass, conga, and cuatro, crafting an energetic lament against the stagnant stillness of those who won’t rise from their seats to dance...

...and Bokete, with its light, almost ethereal musical introduction, walks or retraces—line by line—the intimate paths we all know well, paths that unleash nostalgia into untamed playfulness when triggered by the press of “play,” prompting us to sing and perhaps strain more than just our throats, as we repeat its chorus and verses over and over again.

Once, I wrote about a young woman who, having left the place where she was born, no longer knew which country would bring her the greatest happiness in this world. She was still smiling as she pondered this question, but that feeling of having left the land of her birth, as she spoke of her family scattered across so many parts of the globe, and as she thought of the beautiful composition of white sands on her beaches, covered by transparent seawater, changed the tone of her cheerful voice to one of deep and budding nostalgia.

For those who, as they walk or work, feel their spirit constantly drawn back to those beaches... and dream of going to see those amethyst-hued afternoons in the place where they were born, even for just a few days, because they remember it and feel there’s something in their genes that carries the color of that land, the climate of that place, the smile of its people, who live there with joy waking under the sky that gazes upon its sea—beyond all hardship, this song is for them. And, woven into its lyrics, for those who once had a paradise with someone and have lost it, a place they can only return to in memory, this song is for them as well.

And here’s a lesson for the future: You should take more pictures, far more.  DtMF.

Here's an anthem to color the days of your summer, your life, your season.

 Sitting at the desk in my room, playing the same song on Spotify like an automaton, I think of the many people who confess, comment, or share what Bad Bunny's (BB) album means to them. Some say, "Whenever BB releases an album, things go well for me. I was waiting for this one." Another wrote, "My life needed some joy—bring on the album."

As for me, there hasn't been a time when I smiled more than when the previous album came out, filled with freshness and the sensation of the beach. Coincidence or not, listening to this one now, and reflecting on the famous law of conservation of energy—which states that it "can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed"—I feel like good things are on their way.

"- I wish I'd taken more photos, to show you. Photos are lived moments, memories of things that happened. I wasn't one to go around taking photos or posting stories or anything like that. I used to say it was better to live the moment. But when you reach this age, remembering isn't so easy...

-  Well, shall we keep looking at more photos?

-  I already told you, I don't have that many! I'll show you the ones I have. And I'll try to remember... the ones I didn't take. OK?"

"Because life isn't how you live it, but how you remember it," I once read from Gabo. It's also worth preserving some important things for the future. Living and documenting go hand in hand. Thank you for making it to the end; thank you for your attention.

And remember:

"I should have taken more photos. I should have lived more. I should have loved more... when I could... While we're alive, we should love as much as we can."

 

The vertical gaze (En)

Hidden behind an intense, drifting veil of clouds, you reveal yourself fleetingly, intermittently, on a night when earthly worries consume the hours; unnoticed and almost secondary to the city's lights. Perhaps you are but a pale coin paid by all the lonely souls. Yet, to those stubborn enough to find you, you offer your companionship—perhaps already weary of illuminating—Moon.

Barely above sea level on Lima’s coastal plains, the summer fullness of this place doesn’t favor your constant presence. And even when, for brief moments, you manage to be the only true light of the night sky, most of the locals live out their Saturday demanding every minute repay the credit of being lived. There are corners where faces yearn for the dawn, seeking the night’s joy in bottles of liquor; children burning their last energy of the day playing in the gazebo of a park where someone, lost in silent thoughts, swings slowly on a wooden swing. People passing by, people arriving, people flowing with the rhythm of the cool night, heading home or to someone’s home, their horizontal gazes fixed on the glow of streetlights.

In this place of sparse grass and cement, my gaze strays upward. Night after night, it seeks you, steadfast in its contemplation, knowing that before the year ends, you will bid farewell on one of these evenings.

I no longer argue with the tenderness I see in love; I neither delight in it nor resent it. What impresses me now is the beauty of aged couples who have woven time into the expression of their love—so different from the romantic spark in kisses born for the fleeting thrill of passion.

I wonder, searching the dense darkness of the sky, if my eyes deserve your companionship. In the quiet passage of the night, behind the clouds, luminously alone, have you declared yourself unworthy of being looked upon? I search for you, with an almost enamored constancy, and finally, finding you, glowing and full, having climbed higher than the clouds, my eyes write to you. They compose this romantic patience that hasn’t faltered until you were found so that my words may at last describe your affectionate presence, your long-awaited company.

I wonder:
Do my eyes deserve your company?
Do you deserve my gaze?
I search for you.
My eyes write to you my patience...
My words describe your presence...

Finally, starry. XD

La mirada vertical

Escondida, detrás de un intenso velo nuboso y errante, te muestras fugaz e intermitente, en una noche donde las preocupaciones terrenales consumen las horas. Inadvertida y casi accesoria frente a las luces de la ciudad, tal vez eres una pálida moneda que pagan todas las soledades; sin embargo, a quien empeñadamente consigue encontrarte, devuelves a cambio tu compañía, quizá fatigada ya de alumbrar, Luna.

Apenas sobre el nivel del mar, en la llanura de la costa limeña, la plenitud veraniega de este lugar no propicia que tu presencia sea constante. Y aún cuando, por minutos, sabes ser del cielo la única luz verdadera de la noche, los más del lugar viven la ocurrencia de un sábado, exigiendo a sus horas el crédito de vivirlos minuto a minuto. Hay esquinas de rostros con ansia de madrugada, buscando la alegría de la noche en botellas de licor; niños entregando su última energía del día jugando dentro de la glorieta del parque, donde alguna persona, discurriendo en silencio, pasa los minutos, mecida lentamente sobre un columpio de madera.

Gente que pasa, gente que vuelve, que sigue el ritmo de la fresca noche camino a casa o a alguna casa de este lugar, con miradas horizontales entregadas a la luz de las farolas.

En este lugar, de menuda hierba y bancas de cemento, se extravía mi mirada al cielo, que constante, ha venido a buscarte minutos y horas, cada día, en actitud de contemplarte, sabiendo que, antes que termine el año, te despides una de estas noches y que hay tanto que no he podido compartir.

Ya no cuestiono más la ternura que veo en los amores, no disfruto ni reniego al observar. Me impresiona sí, la belleza de las parejas añosas que han sabido agregar el tiempo a la expresión de su amor, tan distinto de la romántica flama en los besos que nacen para lo apasionadamente fugaz…

Me pregunto, esculcando la cerrada oscuridad del cielo, si merecen mis ojos tu compañía; si en este paso de la noche, allá atrás de las nubes, luminosamente solitaria, has declarado que no deseas ser mirada. Te busco, con una constancia casi enamorada y, pudiendo al fin verte, encendida y plena, habiendo escalado más alto que las nubes, mis ojos te escriben esta romántica paciencia que no ha cesado hasta encontrarte, para que mi letra por fin pueda describir tu cariñosa presencia, tu esperada compañía.

Me pregunto.
¿Merecen mis ojos tu presencia?
¿Deseas mi mirada?
Te busco.
Mis ojos te escriben mi paciencia,
mi letra describe tu compañía.

Finalmente, estrellado. XD