After my mother died
I thought I could make music with any object
pass through doors without opening them
and even eat bread without the bread existing.
It’s not a matter of grieving or calamity
its about sounds, for example
the one caught in the snow in the trees
seems like it doesn’t make a sound
but you have to come near and put your ear to the trunk.
The birds when sleeping
dream that they speak and say strange things
and on awakening they don’t understand even a “peep”
because they can’t accept that it is possible.
It’s as if the air were nourished by the breath
of inanimate things and suddenly everything sounds
each time that my pencil hits the notebook
each time I press the keys or create a silence, everything counts.
I thought that it would be a good idea to follow my mother’s last wishes,
the ashes scattered in Castelar would sound like leaves
falling from the lemon tree of her childhood
the one that no longer exists but was there, I have witnesses.
It would be like rebuilding the downed tree
like extinguishing the fire that burned her body
like extracting the monster that inhabited her entrails
like putting out the candles of a birthday that missed being celebrated.
It is as if the air had empowered my efforts
and I wrote frozen and happy from knowing that there is no measuring of life
only for the sound that life expels every time it says Ding dong
and we answer Tick tock...
-peace and poetry-
© Adrian
translation by Nina Serrano
