enlaceZapatista

Shall we recommence?

Shall we recommence?

The fig tree rubs its wind
with the roughness of its branches,
and the mountain, beach marten cat,
bristles its sour fibers.
But who shall come? And where…?

(Romance Sonámbulo.
Federico García Lorca)

Yes, the wind and the mountains seem to have known each other for a long time.  I could tell you the exact date, but it’s beside the point… or joint.  That firm but apparent resignation or resistance may not be understood: the mountain in enduring one blow after another; the wind in its apparent withdrawal, giving up to return later.  Always the same, always different.

But it is not these hasty reversals that worry the mountain.  It’s seen worse, if you ask her.  No, what concerns her are the storms that arrive with their claw excavators, and all sorts of excavating machines, mineral seekers, tourist companies, factories, shopping centers, trains, governments that pretend to be what they are not, destruction, death.  To sum up: the system.

So it is not surprising that they reach an agreement, the mountain and wind.  After all, they share the same mother: Ixmucané, the most knowledgeable.

No, I will not tell you the exact date of their first meeting.  But let’s say that they have known each other for a long time, that the skeptical gesture and the sneer of the mountain at the first lightnings and gales is a bit of a routine now a days.  The same is true of the insolence of the wind when it tears away locks of the mountain’s green hair due to rain, wind and thunder.  The scratches that the wind throws with clumsy passion, wounds like watery ditches, are not enough to attenuate the acrid rejection of the mountain.  They meet, they disagree, and, eventually, they end up hugging and saying goodbye without promises or confessions.  A complex relationship that has a lot of acceptance and rejection.  “Love”, then.

-*-

They say that some say that people say that a tale tells of a legend yet to be written, that there was a meeting and that they summoned the Votán family, guardian and heart of the town.  And thus said the mountain:

“My babies, the most beloved, what you read before on my skin and hair is already coming.  The brother wind, mister Ik’, brings fierce news of another storm, the deadliest of all.  We already know.  And it’s up to the whole family to resist and defend.  You are the guardians that were created to protect. Without you, we die and wander without meaning.  Without us, you become lost beings, with only emptiness in your heart and no hope in your existence.  Ik’ tells what his heart saw: that, in heaven and earth, animals share restlessness and anxiety.

They hear this in Cauca and in the neighborhoods of Slovenia.  In Japan and Australia.  In Canada and in SLUMIL K´AJXEMK´OP.  In Norway, in Sweden, in Denmark and in the Nicaragua that neither surrenders nor sells out, not ever!  In La Polvorilla and in the wound that the transisthmian train, a suppurating sore, makes in the hearts of the indigenous peoples who are fighting.  In the countries where war multiplies like misfortunes and in those who have open arms to help the helpless.  In Ostula and Greenland. In tortured Haiti and in the Mayan cenotes stained by the rails of demagoguery. In the displaced and in those evicted from life by extortion. In the libertarian @ that has warned, for some time, that the State is not a solution but a problem. In the Palestinian girl who with that bomb got the mysetry of life… and the certainty of death.

Thus they speak it to the brother Saami people, to the Mapuche, to the gypsy with the house on his back, to the native of all lands and seas, to those who fight and resist on the land that grows upwards, to the fisherman who in the sea works the life.  They tell it to girls who understand the forgotten language. To children with serious looks. To women seeking forced absences. To elderly people who make up their scars as painful wrinkles. To those who are neither he nor she and fuck Rome. To all human beings who, like corn, come in all the colors and on the table, the floor, and on the lap, have all the ways.

But not everyone listens.  Only those who look far and deep understand what that word spoken by Ixmucané, the most knowledgeable, says and warns.

So find a way, my children. And find who. Raise the word with mister Ik’ in one hand and my heart in the other.  Remind the world that death and tomorrow are born in the shadows of the night.  «Light is forged in the darkness»

-*-

Yes, the wind and the mountain met again. But this time it was different. The early morning had extended its arrival, perhaps suffocated by the heat, but with the first lightning cracking the huapác, it immediately presented itself with a rain like a slap in the face.

In the champa, the noise of rain drops on the tin roof allowed little or no hearing.  But one could clearly see, thanks to the shaky benevolence of a lighter, a piece of paper with multiple scratches on the table – burnt and with blades of damp tobacco. In it, the only thing that could be read clearly was:

“Patience is a virtue of the warrior”

Health and may the night find us as it should be, that is, awake.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

THE CAPTAIN.
August 2024.

P.S.- Yes, of course, and the woman warrior [la guerrera].  Yes, and the they warrior [loa guerreroa].  De ‘le guerrere’? Really?

No hay comentarios »

No hay comentarios todavía.

RSS para comentarios de este artículo.

Deja un comentario