We followed the river until it converged with the same river Guaire which ran the length of the valley. We were one mile from our destination. We crossed the Guaire from south to north, following the path of those who had survived one of the two previous expeditions that had made it this far. The Guaire was not deep, but, having lived all my life near rivers, I knew how mighty it could become with the proper amount of rain. Soon after, we crossed a creek called Catuche, along which soursop trees grew by the hundreds, hence the creek’s name, which in Carib meant soursop. Tamanoa brought me one of its fruits and ripped it open beforemyeyes. It was white, succulent and aromatic. As the sun descended, the deep green of the cordillera mingled now with soft blues and yellows. We had turned north and were ascending the slope of the piedmont when Losada’s voice resoundingly gave the order to stop. We had finally reached a destination: the charred remains of what had been the settlement of San Francisco, half-buried in the vegetation. Francisco Fajardo had fled the settlement five years ago when he knew the reinforcements he had pleaded for had been wiped out by the Arbaco Indians of Terepaima. After painful losses, Fajardo had divided his forces into two and fled in canoes and pirogues. It was eerie being in that deserted place. The air smelled strongly of rain, damp earth and plants. The howling monkeys, chachalacas, parrots—they were all quiet. That night, as a full moon shone through thick clouds, the ubiquitous night-song of frogs and crickets was overridden by the deafening buzz of cicadas. Losada paced nearly beyond range of the firelight, five strides to the right, five to the left, hand combing his beard and moustache, eyes fixed on the ground before him, his grizzled hair reflecting the silvery moonlight. He anxiously awaited the return of the troupe led by Diego de Paradas, who finally arrived after midnight, looking seriously bedraggled. “What happened?” asked Losada. Diego de Paradas was wounded. Pánfilo spoke for him.
Loneliness of Time Now that the world is holed and time drips out of its wound. If I love you, I love you in your pain. If I hate you, it’s because my pain blinds me my desperation springs out of its darkness in the night and squirms sounding like a serpent in the room primeval house monster that comes out of my belly and gets an epileptic fit writhes on the floor my desperation screams with a fine voice you you you you you you and the loneliness of time.
II As shadows elongate bringing inspiration to the poet’s stanzas and the nimble movement of the sparrow marks a feather the pair marches to the decapitated oak’s tallest branch. With their sacred offering life repents for a sinful deed. The frozen north wind, fearsome and forever lonely, never unjustifiably angry, groans as a colossal iceberg and cracks a faint smile all his thirty-two teeth agree and shine in the gleaming moonlit evening as he pleasurably accepts the sacred offering. All the wind stands still and in attention when they are advised to dutifully go back to their perennial task.
Heavenly Flow Time reflections of stars in the eye of Being a fleeting image-like existence thundering silence between myself and death Eternity the constant movement of nothing something sinful breathes these days no one returns to innocence for something that isn’t there what the infinite searches for and it spreads, whirls slipping in space-time that constantly births what could be beyond the heavenly flow nostalgia for what was when it was expelled from the warmth of the obscurity of uterus.
back into the bay, “we ought to try a power gurdy. I don’t know if it would control the lines any better, but it would speed things up.” “I don’t trust them. The hand gurdy is fine.” “But, Dad…..” “Peter. I said the hand gurdy will do for us.” “Look, I’ll pay for it. If you don’t like it, it goes, and it doesn’t cost you anything.” “No. I said no.” The steel of stubborness was in the old man’s voice. “That’s the end of it.” Evenings when the boat was in port, Peter rarely had supper with his folks. He roamed. After midnight, they heard his quiet steps on the stairs to his room. “You must say something to him, Ivar,” his mother said. “He’s going to find trouble.” “He’s a grown man, Hilda.” Then, after a few weeks back on the boat and more suggestions, Pete argued with Ivar about how to do the work, occasionally at first, and after a couple of years nearly without ceasing. The change in his son troubled Ivar Torgerson. A scowl seemed engraved on the face of the young man. Eagerness for work transmuted into a flow of resentment and quarreling. He swore at people who got in his way when he walked on the dock. Ivar heard reports of Peter picking fights in bars and tormenting drunken Indians on the waterfront in Seattle. He heard worse too, things he would not listen to, about Peter and sailors, about the kinds of things some sailors do. At Christy’s Tavern, he knocked Hans Karlson flat when Karlson began to tell him what he’d heard. Ivar never asked his son where he went on his nights out alone. He could not bring himself to mention what he knew Karlson and the others whispered about. On a Sunday evening, Ivar and Hilda strolled down the hill toward the bay, relishing the softness of the springtime air and the quietness of the streets. They looked in store windows, admired flower beds, ambled along the dock. “Ivar, you’re headed toward the boat. This is Sunday. Come on, we’re turning around right now.”
When he entered the classroom, he sat on the teacher’s desk, his feet dangling, and told stories about the Arctic. The children listened raptly. He received another speaking request, and then another, and another. He accepted all of them. His talks were a training ground for what was to come. Fraser had been right. “”We’re not selling paintings; we’re selling stories.” He spoke to classrooms of elementary students and to older students in high schools. One time he began with, “Before we get going I want to tell you, just so that no fraud is committed here – I never went to school.” The children gasped. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it – that I’ve been asked to come and talk to you but I didn’t go to school? Now, make of that what you will. I’m not suggesting that you don’t get a formal education, but I am suggesting that there are those of us who probably fare better if we don’t.” He shared his thoughts on education – what it is and what it is not. He wove his ideas into stories of the Arctic, stories of politics, and stories of old mythology. His stories posed questions. “Why do we think things are right and why do we think other things are wrong? Where did we get all this stuff? Who wrote it down? Who says it’s true?” His speaking invitations multiplied, until he could accept no more. He met with the principal of one school that had made a request, and said, “I want to speak to the whole school. Give me your auditorium. This is a performance, and I don’t want forty-five minutes – I want the entire afternoon.” He asked that the banners in the auditorium be taken down, all the lights turned off, and the windows curtained. He asked for one microphone, with a long cord, and a spotlight on centre stage. There would be no adults in the auditorium, although teachers could position themselves out of sight where they could hear. The children were to come in and sit on the floor. When they were seated, the room would be plunged into total darkness, and the children would sit for three minutes in silence, before he walked on the stage. “Are you out of your mind?” the principal said. “These aren’t children – they’re little animals! It will be chaos! You obviously don’t understand children!” “I probably do,” Ken said. “I was one once and I probably still am.” “It can’t be done.” “Fine. I live in a world where apparently everything can’t be done. Have you ever tried this?” “No.” “Then, you’re educating children and giving them advice based on things you’ve never done. That’s one hell of a way of going about things. Well, that’s my offer – take it or leave it.”
Falling Star Give me a falling star I said, and I shall wish to hold your hand softly during frosty winter nights and to adorn you like a little laughter when you ache before the unaccomplished and coming close to me you kissed my lips and blinking your eyelids you said, I shall give you two
The night is a door only the blind can see; darkness makes the animals hear better and he staggered not from being drunk but from his futile effort to climb up to the tower we had once lost.
Manolis Aligizakis 