Soledades - VI (EN)

 

i am the bass of an electric guitar
calm and faint, slow
that holds the note
and defends, steady,
its quiet sadness.

the heartbeat of a time
that’s gone
begins:
one by one it scatters memories,
spaced and deep,
the strike of the drumstick.

the singer’s voice
doesn’t try to outrun me,
and translates into words what I confess
each time this song returns.

and though there are three of us, we come together —
loss reunites us;
on this small stage
of modest light
we sing the lost things,
what time carries away...

tear,
silence of the road,
first true night;
we offer this performance to the sky
to, slowly, watch the stars dance...

and I know well.
refusing to look at joy
doesn’t make us welcome:
the shadows dissolve
they murmur; they yawn...

bright once was  this song,
hear the lament that remains,
music of a heart —
its firm and quiet sadness.

Starman (EN)

David Bowie once felt that Nirvana's rendition of "The Man Who Sold the World" was unbearably sad; he would likely say the same of Matt Johnson's consoling, acoustic take on "Starman." I believe he understood that from sorrow have been born memorable works of art—even in music—but perhaps he simply did not care for that particular sentiment in his own creations.

It was past ten at night, and I was returning from that place where they don't play Bowie, Queen, or Nirvana; although, like those bands, their music also strives to mend the many hearts shattered by time's relentless passage—infusing them with a tone of faith to retune their lives. One by one, people had risen on stage, spontaneously, to give thanks for what 2024 had left them. And amid the many voices stoking the echo of hope in the auditorium, there was Gael—the 7‑year‑old boy who, first with resolute confidence and then, silenced by the tremor of contained emotion, stuttered through tears his thanks to God or fate, grateful that after his mother's motorcycle accident she remained alive and happily his for another year in her brief, tender life. The pastor, with delicate wisdom, helped him finish what in Gael had already become a blend of sorrow, faith, and joy rushing to burst from his lips, and amid applause his unstoppable sobbing was hushed.

Likewise, in my ear still echoed the phrase "One day I'll be running," spoken by a woman whose conviction shone in the radiance of her enormous, instructive smile. She shared that everything she'd regained over the past year—and all that remained to be recovered of her mobility—would be achieved, with Him, with the one who would help her overcome; that it didn't matter if today she couldn't walk perfectly, because she knew that soon enough she would run, and she smiled as she prepared to repeat it—whether with her mouth or with her heart, I could not tell. Faith can feel like a light that springs forth from the spirit, spilling over in a warmth that overflows like tears tracing silent pathways down the cheeks. Thus I witnessed that faith etched itself on the faces in the auditorium, united spiritually by the gleam in their eyes.

Later, with a small candle piece for each person and a flame as warm and golden as sunlight, everyone—through a personal and communal song—gave thanks in an orderly manner; and I heard, shared equally in my thoughts: "For my family, for this family, and for the serendipities that fate bestows." I would say that each one ignited the fire of their own star as we prayed warmly to God.

The lights within that darkened space and the tenderness emanating from every word were so overwhelming that they reminded me of gazing at the stars when I was a child—of the gratitude I felt because I could see them so clearly, never ceasing to marvel at their beauty.

Sometimes I gaze at the sky, and as it captures my attention, a nascent nostalgia mingles with my memories. I know that as a child—and I remember it vividly—the sky over Villa de Buenos Aires was a spectacle, and I would remain transfixed by that synchrony of twinkling lights. My vision was sharper then; I could even distinguish—indeed, I remember—the flicker of each light and the differences between them. I'd fix my gaze on one, or a group, or a cluster, as I later read, and I noticed that uniform pattern as I watched. Sometimes what we see is not a single star but a group, or an entire galaxy whose gathered stars shine brilliantly; other times it is but one, so potent that it outshines thousands. I felt those lights within me—both distant and near—through my eyes.

I only recall seeing shooting stars three times. The first was in my youth, right from the porch of my house, where my uncle used to repeatedly puff on that melancholy cigarette with his leg propped on the largest stone, leaving behind a faint trail of smoke, as he stood admiring the sky. I was with my brother, who did not see it, and a shooting star does not wait for your attention—it simply appears; I saw it, but he did not. The second time was in Cuenca, with someone whose absence now grieves my heart like the glow of another star I find beautiful yet unreachable; and I believe... she too never noticed it. We opened the large windows that covered the landing of the building's staircase—where I lived on the fourth floor—on a night that had just ended a heavy rain, right after the heat began to emerge—and, noting that the night was immensely starry, I asked her that we observe the sky intently, as I remembered doing as a child, and with our eyes tilted in unspoken agreement, perhaps I saw it—or we saw it—moving swiftly among the multitude of lights in the blue tapestry of the sky: a bright streak that vanished in an instant.

Sometimes I recall Carl Sagan's words: "We are made of the same stuff as the stars" and "the cosmos is within us." That we are as extraordinary as they are—made to shine. I feel a mixture of sorrow and strength from watching them, motionless in the firmament.

Moved by the evening and its prayer of gratitude, now concluded, I walked along the sidewalk, detached from the crowd bustling by, with my noise-cancelling headphones on, until I realized that God—or the wind—had swept away the clouds, allowing me to see clearly above as the spectacle of the sky continued to give thanks throughout the night. Someone signaled to me and asked how far I was going. They decided it was too far to walk and chided me for not taking a vehicle; I looked up at the sky, and I couldn't find the words to explain that I didn't want to stop marveling at how the stars above seem like lights offering thanks—like children holding candles—that I long to observe, that I want to contemplate. I looked back and told them I like walking, that it's simply what I do, and they seemed to accept it. I turned on "Starman" and, as the soulful sound of its guitar carved into my heart, I lifted my gaze while walking, feeling as if distant memories—like stars—were drawing near and merging within my heart. I realized that sadness and gratitude are lights of the same constellation, both beautifying life and filling it with meaning. If I have reached this place—where everyone gives thanks for the trials, for the sorrows that forge their faith and their hearts—then it is alright, and I must understand it, for it illuminates my path. I keep walking, and for the third time in my life the sky offers me a shooting star; I think of Cuenca, and I feel the melancholy of the song's melody come to me, and I return a tear, moved, in gratitude.

Starman - Cafe Acoustic Guitar (Makihiko Araki)

"When I'm out on the street and I hear that song, I usually look up at the sky, as if witnessing a battle: my sorrow fighting against my joy; and I smile as I think that a hero in vibrant colors will come down to help me."

 

XD/TT

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.