ESPAÑOL (Original)
The Acentos Review publicó Letra en un árbol en su edición de abril 2024 en Español.
Something has escaped through the night and entered my veins, that's what goes through my mind when I go out and see you and “beautiful night” leaves my mouth.
Before you, before escaping, I think of sneaking out the back door. Remembering it's noisy, I think then, of using the corridor window and slipping away like a spider, like the wind; I do it. That night, I searched for you. Not distinguishing from the nights when I go searching for something, somewhere, sometimes for nothing, but never for someone… because, would you believe me if I told you that all these nights, really without knowing it, I was searching for you?
One does, without knowing, many things. And that night you met the unconscious and so completely me; like I never knew myself. I mean that for the first time, so purely, I was a soul, a time, a space occupied by flesh and bone like any other — that could die at any hour and still be time: so useless, so undeniable.
I was, with you, who I never was with anyone else. I wonder, was it I who met you? Did you meet me, then? Recalling our encounter, I question everything. But the truth is that, it was very easy, with you, to feel free of this doubt — like it is otherwise impossible at such hours of the night, and, at these. I ask you, please, that when perceiving my uncertainty, you do so with a grain of salt. For if something grounds me, it’s that we met, and that I loved you.
So. When I was slipping away through the window; leg by leg, arm by arm, and I put my feet onto the ground, I made sure to crouch when passing by open windows with sleepless people, and televisions on. It is not me who they see, but my shadow. Perhaps they think that I'm a cat? A raccoon? A rat??? I don't know. Undoubtedly, a nocturnal animal that belongs to the night. Eitherway, I'm pleased because they don't perceive me as their own and that's why it's easy to ignore my existence. By chance, do I resemble a cat, raccoon, or rat so convincingly? (I admit that their names were shouted at me once or twice).
Page 1
Look. Of the cat, agility; Of the raccoon, dark circles of insomnia; but what of the rat? I bet it’s the bearing of so many broom strikes. Oh, the sad life of a rat! Or a kid snuck out at night!
While you imagine that I crawl on four limbs in the streets, imagine me now beginning to straighten up. Then arriving at the corner liquor store (standing), I make a turn. I pass by the drunk men, and then by the palm trees with a seriously threatening appearance(because by day, they're quite beautiful, it's true. But by night, they resemble gigantic spiders.)Their rounded fronds hang loosely balanced to a central body and wait around like they’re ready to drop on something lonely. Like even with a fight the prey would go easily pressed in their swathing, and soon, they would also loom in the distance.
Anyway, I have to cross the road, of course, at some point. And nothing, not even huge spiders, can threaten me like doing so. When the light indicates permission, one must cross the street while everyone watches with their blinding lights. A criminal to be judged: that's how I feel in front of the omniscient car and its driver. Where to? Where from? Then, why? At this time of night?
It makes me want to run. I understand why pedestrians rush, even with the right of passage. Yet, anxiety leaves when passes by a couple on a bicycle, when the mockingbirds sing, when I catch a glimpse of a party inside 'Casa Adelita', and when I see Adelita, the famous woman on the restaurant mural. She smiles, and greets me with her sombrero, she aims, and shoots me with her rifle, she wraps her shawl around me. In short, she's very charming, and if it weren't because she's only a wall, I would tell her.
Page 2
You see, feeling like an animal at night has its positives. These streets are divine. Don't be so convinced by my pessimistic tone. One does not endure being called a rat, in vain. The bending palm trees, the fresh air, city lights; these are my joys. The bad part is needing to do it in secret. Yet, what can I do? I am a rat.
After an hour of wandering the city, I am bored and I decide to enter a fear-inspiring alley where a single lantern illuminates only the jasmine vine hanging on the railings of a workshop. I don't dare step into the light, just crouch and extend my arm into the glow. With my fingers, I pick up a flower from the ground and walk along the lengthy distance of the black alley. I further myself from the only sounds living in it: the buzz of the lantern, and the drum of moths hitting against it.
It's then that you enter my life so casually, like when chance saves, or takes your life away. If it weren't because you saved, and took mine all at once, perhaps I could forget you or not realize; If our encounter had been just a simple Beautiful night. Beautiful night. But in the grand scheme of that alley, were we, or not? Two moths in the dark seeking the light?
Will we be condemned all our lives to seeking? Will you make sure of it? At best, don't leave the light all together, like you left me — I beg you. Let us return to being buzzes and drums. I divulge.
When I looked to my left between two trees, I saw your shadow. In that alley, just a shape.
“Beautiful night,” I say in passing.
“Oh yes, how beautiful! Enough to climb the moon, make a hole in it, and drink its water like from a coconut.”
Page 3
I stop in my tracks, turning towards you. Resting my hands in my pockets, I look at the moon and then at you. How many nights through these streets and I never met you. How many nights with the moon and I never thought of it, a coconut.
“Well, you said it. I only said it was beautiful… What does the moon have to do with coconuts anyway?... How cold it is out!”
“Indeed, it is. Enough to wear three pairs of socks next to a blazing fire and let the cold melt to sleep."
I furrowed my brow at you; I don't know if you noticed. You were just a pair of eyes and a strip of moonlight across a set of lips…(I wish I were now, across your lips) just a statue in contrapposto against a tree trunk.
“Why do you respond like that?” I ask.
“Why do I respond… like what?”
“So elaborately.”
“Ah! You want me to respond like an echo? Like a recording? Like a shadow? You tell me 'beautiful night,' and want me to respond 'beautiful night.' And you tell me ‘it's cold’, then expect me to repeat ‘it's cold’.
I stay thinking. I lower my gaze. Silence holds until I break it with my laughter. Yes, I say to myself in silence.
And I say to you out loud, “well, yes. Don't scold me. I expected a provisional response. We don't know each other. However, the night is beautiful, and I told you so. And I didn't expect that the faceless silhouette in the middle of an alley would start reciting verses at the remark of another faceless silhouette —"
“Verses? Well, you said it. I only said the moon was a coconut. What do coconuts have to do with verses?”
Page 4
At last your mouth turns into the waxing crescent phase of the moon itself. With this comment your smile is glorious. We laugh, and then I reply.
“Recite more verses. What a captivating silhouette that talks — nothing provisional.”
I lean against the tree that's next to you.
“We are blind in this alley — by the way, they should really install a light here — but I want to know more. Make me ponder. The moon, like a coconut…”
The moon, like a coconut; I would bring it down to you. Closing one eye to focus, I’d pluck it from the sky and approach you with a fistful of light. Then, I'd rest in your palm a jasmine flower picked from the ground (because the moon isn't a coconut, nor is it harvestable) just to get closer to you and, yes, catch a glimpse.
Not curious about the reasons of your being there in that alley (because I know your reason was the same as mine); my curiosity was for seeing who you were: for knowing if you were me, or if you were you, or maybe you were Adelita, (I knew you were a rat), if you were truth, or if you were a lie, if you were confusion, (I was beginning to doubt that you, or I, were sane). But I won't write anymore as if my (failed) endeavors were only concepts. Because when I did the ridiculous shtick of handing you the moon, you wouldn't let me get close without sinking into the shadows. Circling around the trees, you wouldn't let yourself be known. Yet, when the cars passed by with their omnipresent lights, had you needed to borrow my tree to remain hidden, you'd do it from time to time. And the tale continues.
Page 5
When did I fall in love? Was it when we observed our reflections, with the moon, in a puddle of water (still being silhouettes)? Or when you threw yourself on me to dodge away from more lights? I don't know if it was when I refused to give-in to the desire of kissing your lips, or if it was when you'd given-in, or I gave-in.
Oh, how cold my eyes were before kissing you. Then, such as omnipotent eyes melting with your mouth — hot fire, to heat me. And, no. During a kiss the eyes don't dare open — nor so near a flame. So, I didn't see you, nor did you see me. Yet hidden, I knew you. Two lips, two statues, two frozen moments. And what a pity it is to have never uttered our names; I'm tired of calling us lips, statues, silhouettes, rats — Oh, how tired I am of rats.
I know you only from this encounter: with closed eyes and open mouths, in an alley, on a beautiful night in which we possessed, or possessed by the moon, you were you, just as much as I was I! What possessed you to leave me… or to leave yourself?
The sun broke, and you fled. Not a word from my mouth. What else?
I returned to my corridor window without saying a word. How strange it is to slip from inside-out, at night. And then, how strange from outside-in, before the people wake.
Page 6
Thirteen nights I've waited for you to come back. I wait for you in the deep shadow, in the cold, in the alley; I don't wander before or after. And sometimes I imagine that little by little, each night, you are the one who waxes and wanes the moon. Such visions are the phases…
What does the moon have to do with coconuts? I don't know…Then again, how can I avoid thinking of one, when I see the other?
Sometimes I wonder if you exist among unfamiliar faces of the day. Then everybody becomes a silhouette. All I see are eyes and lips! What is there to think of or see? I have only a dark alley.
Before slipping away again tonight, I drink hot coffee. And I blow holes into its surface but they recover as I write you this letter knowing not how to address you, or me — or what address to leave this at.
Sincerely,
moth, silhouette, spider, cat, raccoon, rat, whatever it may be.
ABOUT THE PUBLICATION
The Acentos Review, April 2024
Letter at a Tree is my first work published in Spanish. The inspiration for this story sparked when the electrical circuit overloaded in my house one night. I followed my mother into the darkness of the neighbor's back yard to flip the switch back on. My mother and siblings were surprised at my bravery — everyone feared crossing property lines at such hours. But something had escaped through the night and entered my veins. I originaly formatted Letter at a Tree entirely as a 12 page poem — and in spanish. Then I translated it and turned the lines into sentences.