By Antonio Aguirre
Emerging from these pages is a giant from interior universes who submerges himself in God.
From the edge of the waterfall, he musters the courage to extend his arms and plunges himself towards the bottom of the clearest blue water, ever ancient, ever new, discarding his old self to give way to a new man and to breathe the air of newfound freedom in a sea of love.
Undressing oneself is a great metaphor for dying so that perhaps to die may simply mean to get undressed.
The various deaths the poet undergoes happen across different times and places, which merely serve as lighted stages for an actor towards complete nakedness.
And these deaths are glorious because they awake the giant from his shapeless dream, and strike by strike transform him into a son of light, who trembles as he approaches God’s dream for him.
The poet hears the music of the universe and cannot stop listening to it.
He wonders to himself if everybody hears what he hears.
"For the poet, life fully lived is always an exile, which means discarding his old self to become another self, otherwise it is neither an exile nor is he a poet."
He soon discovers that no one else hears it and that he is fated to make life’s journey alone in a language long forgotten and yet familiar because once upon a time we all did speak it.
Therefore he stands desolate, leafless with the trees: oh, how he has died with the grass of summer; oh, how he grieves for those parts of him that chose to live.
Well inside his universe, childhood is the motherland.
It is a magic river flowing with perfumed hyacinths where bronzed torsos of naked fauns tease peeping nymphs out of their hiding. It is a river where anything can happen, with kites and toy planes soaring high in vaulted nimbi, and where angels disrobe to scan frailties with their knowledge sharper than needles.
The poet speaks of a world long gone, where sugarcane fields flourished under the unforgiving heat of a scorching tropical sun whose dazzling light danced upon water buffalos and kept on dancing day and night, like a mad old man, over rice fields and coffee plantations.
Pulled out of this childhood paradise, the poet is reborn into another Adam, becomes an exile and starts following in the footsteps of this New Adam in search of the highest form of chivalry.
For the poet, life fully lived is always an exile, which means discarding his old self to become another self, otherwise it is neither an exile nor is he a poet.
Along the way he learns new languages but never forgets his childhood, and the gold chain that links him to his ancestors will forever remain unbroken.
Doubts will sit at his table, and Lady Uncertainty will come to pay a visit, like an uninvited guest. And yet she holds the keys to his home, walks in and out as she pleases and turns every room into a mess. There is no hiding from her.
And in the end, with such a close neighbor, the poet gets used to her presence and starts looking at her with compassion and even considers her as a new friend. He kisses her withered hands and realizes how she has become gray and old.
There are other tales told by ordinary voices who more often than not paint their own experiences in black.
The poet, in contrast, paints his world in bold and extravagant strokes of red, green and blue and traverses his exile through the written word.
He turns his exile into an exodus of words, a trip with no return, across the interior jungle, armed with just a machete of utterances to cut away the reeds.
The word and the person merge together in the heart of the poet.
His tale is that of encounters across time, where the great subjects will remain always the same, and the only things that change are the faces of the seasons.
When confronted with doubts, the poet takes refuge in the house of mercy and kneels down.
When faced with perfidy, the poet, frightened, holds the reins of a wild horse in his heart to tame its raging fury, knowing that darts do not love and that in the end, it is all about love, really.
Light dispels the darkness of the night. We cannot fight the night with darkness, only with love, which turns our struggle into a baptism of light.
The example set by other nomads hastens the pace of the poet, who learns their ways for new climbing techniques, and he comes to appreciate the grace in their footsteps.
To love God, the poet empties himself in order to fill himself up with his true self.
Yes, to empty oneself is to fill oneself up.
Not only do his ears but his eyes enable him to hear the music.
He sees music which converts everything, which longs to convert it.
And he tries to escape from a rush, which interrupts him with its urgent and important questions, neither urgent nor important.
At times the poet stops along the way to talk to mad strangers.
“What are you doing?” says the sane. “Don’t you realize? Those people failed to pass the test… defeated by life...losers. Don’t get anywhere near them. They’re contagious!”
Some things will always remain the same: the sane will always talk and the crows will always caw, their bodies like horns.
Oh, but they are my true masters, says the poet, I need them. To kiss their weary feet is to learn to walk the dusty path.
They are wanderers, roving souls, other men ̶ Man himself.
Light changes color on their faces and reveals itself in hues of green and blue, as well as in purple, because light is always musical.
Yes, poets are crazy as God himself is.
And blessed be that madness forever.
❖❖❖
On the mountain top of his solitude, the poet searches for his name.
He looks for his identity and tries to find the purpose of his voice.
While swans swim and dance on the lake on a perfect day, the despondent poet looks for his name, which is never lost, after all, but is now painted among the stars by another Man whose name is above all names.
And the voice of the poet rises and pierces the silence.
❖❖❖
You passed along this way, says the poet.
Look at your footsteps, which cause the flowers to grow on the road.
Note how the morning smells like music and how the wind has visited the house of my childhood.
Take me out with you, sweet wind, take away from me this weight of time.
I do not want mournings, nor do I care for disciples nor for weeping songs. All I want is your hands to gather with mine, and at last to gaze at your face, which I have yearned for in a long time as I tracked your hidden footprints.
Now truth splendidly shines, sure as the moon, sure as the good old sun.
Antonio Aguirre, son of Javier and Maria Jesús. April de 2017