THE MIRAGE OF YOUR FOOTPRINT
In the course of one week I have gone
through several geographical and emotional changes: my intense life in La
Habana to the affections of my sister and her husband in Miami to the chaos of
my relationship with the Indians in North-eastern Nebraska.
I have studied the Liminality concept put
forward by the anthropologist Turner, but even that did not help the dramatic
changes in emotions: the turbulence of Cuba where the lopsided economic and
political system is balanced by an incredibly meaningful social system… that
was like a constant storm and then on to the Indians, this time with some
perplexing incidents that none can explain.
This morning, the complexity had me down.
As I was driving along the freshly green pastures, I thought of the ancestors
who had viewed these fields and whose eyes are now shut for ever.
Suddenly I felt so poor, foolish and sad…
that line from Pablo Neruda popped up.. where did that poetry soothe me, and
when was that?
Walking along the same river, I read aloud
once:
Now, may be,
She rests restlessly
In the great cemetery in Rangoon,
Or maybe on the banks
Of the river Irrawady they burned her body
All afternoon, while
The river murmured
Things that I might have said to her in
tears.
Pablo writing about Josie Bliss…
Death Disease Illness Suffering Separation
Innocence Love Rituals all were staring at me, and I felt suddenly so alone ..
I needed some poetry to rescue me, and like everything else in my life, it arrived
even before I asked for it.
Where did I see the mirage of your footprint on the
road?!
Where did I lose your hands that I ended up here?!
In which part of the story have you slept that I am
awake in tears, that every night I owe the warmth of your hands to my embrace?!
You are accomplice of my depression, accomplice of
this road
you pretend that you are far away from me, I
pretend you are here
In the song of your silence, I am looking for a
healer
There is no sound in my world, I see just images
There is a feeling that I know I have you,
every night I keep the doors open for you to return
It was time to return to the Indians, one
afternoon with them, I knew what I must do, once again reminding me of a poem
by Pablo…
“And that's why i have to go
back
to so many places
there to find myself
and constantly examine myself
with no witness but the moon
and then whistle with joy,
ambling over rocks and clods of earth,
with no task but to live,
with no family but the road.”
― Pablo Neruda
to so many places
there to find myself
and constantly examine myself
with no witness but the moon
and then whistle with joy,
ambling over rocks and clods of earth,
with no task but to live,
with no family but the road.”
― Pablo Neruda
Right at this moment, I wish I was in Paris, in La Habana, uncertain
locations with languages with strange scripts… not to relieve any one else’s
grief but to find an outlet for my own.. for my friend who wants to be with his
lover in Cuba, for a mother crying for the child who is bewildered by a
separation..
Tomorrow night as the rocks are being heated for the ceremony of healing
under this great dome, blue without clouds that we call the sky, I will add the
little rock I brought from Cambodia …to learn the lessons of sacrifice, nothing
can be achieved without sacrifice…
Good Luck in Bruselas, in Guanabacoa, in Baracoa, in Tabriz…
And right here..
In this blue house amidst the Indians in an isolated part of the land
the Indians call, The Turtle Island…
the song Mirage of your footprint is here sung by the well known poet singer Dariush
the song Mirage of your footprint is here sung by the well known poet singer Dariush
