As the stars and gasses were eating each other,
the winds learned from their style
Wherever they went, they founded stars of wind,
cities with children
cities with children
and dogs of wind playing in the streets
At the births, weddings, and festivals of the
galaxies, the youngest winds presented themselves
as boys and girls at the same time
In the pastures of the sky
they made love with the stars
Some angels called to them,
but they paid them no mind at all
Just as well, some galaxies that wanted to marry them
caressed and gave them food
caressed and gave them food
Tiger gasses with masks traveled the universes
devouring the winds
To keep from crying, the winds learned to whistle
After all the madness and adventures,
one wind went to earth
Cows, corn, stones,
a child’s hair
the wind
had no
favorites
Like King Midas
but different, he made
things talk
wherever he went
In the schoolyard
the sun and the wind fought
over who could take off
On earth, mountains, trees, and people
lay down deflated, waiting for the wind
Thanks to the wind
cooking day and night,
there were formed
the limbs of trees
On Sunday afternoons
the wind would play soccer
with candy wrappers
There were winds circling
around the houses,
waiting for someone to give them
something to eat
I don’t remember them all
but there was one wind that startled us
(There were times when I
myself behaved
like the wind)
When we rode our bikes
it would caress us with its breeze
and we believed that this
is how life would always be
In my grandparents’ house
the wind and I got up
early to milk the cows
In Nenutz, the winds that were beating against the ocean’s
belly for two days, said they only wanted vengeance for the humiliations of a
god that nobody remembered.
In the lands of Yanayako
the only thing that interposes between the hunters
and the deer is the wind
But the hunters, in bringing home
Knowing that the volcano was going to destroy the town of
Nimrod, the wind went about the conversations in the market. Nobody listened
but the dogs, some goats, and their owners. They ran to the hills and from
there, in the company of the wind, they mourned. The cries of those pleading
for rescue were left in the mud, where neither the wind nor God could help
them.
The winds that lived with the pirates during the 17th
and 18th centuries were their accomplices. The way the drove their
ships, won battles, sacked cities, and cut the arms from children. Afterwards,
as they dried the mothers’ tears, the winds that had participated pretended it
wasn’t them.
In secret, some women in Scotland raised winds in red,
green, and purple bottles to sell them to sailors who would release them on
their voyages through dangerous routes. The red bottle contained favorable winds,
the green, the strongest ones, the third, winds that carried messages to their
families.
Gabriel was the name of a wind that, one Valentines day,
found himself with a very fine box. Gabriel, bound madly by the laws of his
love, never left the box in all his life. The perfumes of other boxes, the
advice of his friends, of his family, and so on, came to nothing.
The wind that blows and I looked at each other through the
little window of the microwave for a few seconds while it heated my sandwich
for lunch.
It’s not true that
the wind’s
problems
and mine
are different
After so much time in cities, the wind can’t help feeling
like the people
One morning as I went about discouraged, the wind told me he
didn’t want to do anything either
I remember when a friend drowned,
we felt the wind moan
It came and went down the hallways
of the house as though it wanted to tell us
We cried so much while we buried him
and we asked the wind to keep
blowing for us
For us to be such good friends,
in the past the wind and I
must have eaten guavas
and hung out together
Where could it be now, the wind that came to us
from the trees while we kissed
in front of the chickens on the patio?
Wind and spirit, as though they were not,
are something…
Without the wind’s friendship,
beautiful words and birds
would be stones in the encyclopedias
If it weren’t for its breath
the leaves of the bamboo grove
would stay as silent
as posts
Some day, just like a kite
with its string cut, my spirit
will go off with the wind
This way it will be able to visit all
the places we saw in the movies
Newly arrived in a city, without work and
without friends, it came to tell me
not to worry
One day as I went out for a date with a
woman I didn’t know, it touched
me on the shoulder: “Hello, slow down”
For everything it does
the wind doesn’t
charge us
a single cent
In the festivals of the universe
they honor the sun, the earth
and the moon. They don’t
mention the wind
It’s not the wind’s fault
that in cities of stone
built a thousand years ago
people die of heat
In forest fires
it is not the winds who
who fan the flames
but wine and the songs
sung miles away
If a wind isn’t happy
nobody else can be
A wind that began
as a friend and kissing the earth
now attacks it like an animal
Limbs broken from the trees and houses
upside down are the wind’s worst deeds
If the wind can do what it did
to this town, it must be
more powerful than God
The winds that went about
toppling cities for the Maccabees
will return the day we least expect it
It’s difficult to prevent a wind
that has been mistreated as a child
from becoming a hurricane
When a wind wakes us up
we should ask him what’s the matter
If he comes to knock
on our door
he could be sad
he could have a child
who is sick or want
to tell us something
Yesterday a beast against people and
houses. Today playing with some
little flowers in the garden
To show us that
he’s not an animal, the
wind plays the flute
Without teeth or claws,
the wind is without a doubt a
very different kind of beast
In their own republics the winds do what they want
In the plazas they make love standing up or sitting
The leaves that admire them applaud and toast their health
The panes of some windows simply envy them
For sweet words and pollen
the wind gave its best thought
Even when it says nothing, the wind’s words are lovely
The birds’ wings
the shape of your lips
were once
conceived by the wind
So that it feels better,
let’s tell it that it is more important than the sun,
the moon and the stars
Unlike the moon and the sun, the wind never sets
It’s a disgrace that there are still people who slander and
curse the wind
There has still never been
born an artist capable
of making a
wind monument
People joke
but in the past they would listen
to its advice and even trusted it
with their ashes
This wind is all we have
You cannot ask for more
Every New Year the wind raises its cup and stays another
year
Like the taxis of New York, there will always be a wind making
the rounds there
To keep it happy, we should always give it the best hay and
oats as though it were a horse
Nobody breathes the same wind twice
The wind neither is created nor destroyed, it merely changes
voices
The next time we find each other in the road, the wind and
I, we will have different names
. . .
Images from Detroit Institute of Arts:
Sea Boots (1976), Andrew Wyeth
House Ornament (1927), Dick Price
House Ornament (~1880), Unknown Artist
Eastern Sioux and Iowa War Clubs (1835~1840)
Cotopaxi (1862), Frederic Edwin Church
Tripod Vessel with Slab Legs (300~600)
Thalassa (2011), Caledonia Curry
Cycles (1985), Norval Morrisseau
The Moods of Time: Evening (1938), Paul Manship
