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 Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 10:44 pm
i'm a new soul
i came to this strange world
hoping i could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take.
but since i came here,
felt the joy and the fear,
finding myself making every possible mistake.
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 10:45 pm
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 10:50 pm
...did not know. Nacarile did not know death.
She had built the funeral pyre with her own two hands, had the scars to prove it. She knew the weight of her mother’s body, came to the realization after her third strike of the flint that shaking hands were no good for setting wood alight. She knew the burn of rope on her arms, the heat of fire on her face. Nacarile knew what it was to fast, to be without appetite but to hunger. She could sing to you in the voice of cracking flames, bursting wood. She was familiar with the dance of smoke, its color of soul as it coalesced above her head in forms and faces she did not recognize yet knew. And she had once chased ash and wind to the seashore, watched the dying embers catch against the last of the sunlight as the sea devoured them with its great, surging tongue.
But Nacarile did not know death.
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Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:47 am
...plantains. “I will leave you one day, preciosa,” her mother had told her once upon a time. They had been peeling plantains from their bushels and bunches, separating them into satchels. Nacarile had glanced up from her work, puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
There was a hiss, a creaking pop as her mother twisted another plantain free and handed it to her daughter. The young palomino inspected it before tucking it away in her basket.
“One day I will be gone. Not my physical form, but… my spirit. It will have fled my body to play with the children of the air.”
Nacarile didn’t quite understand what her mother was getting at, but she often spoke in stories and riddles, packaged so tight that only thought and sleep could part them. But the idea of her mother’s soul taking flight, to be lost to her… she reached out and wrapped her fingers around Pilar’s wrist as though it would anchor her to this life. The woman laughed, smoothed Nacarile’s curls back and watched them catch the light as they leapt forward.
“Not now, my darling. No, not for a long, long while,” she soothed. “And I will not be gone. The sun never dies, it only sets. You will find me again.”
Nacarile did not let go of her mother’s wrist, but shuffled nearer and pressed to her warm, round side. Pilar dropped her arms around her daughter’s slender shoulders and kissed the crown of her head.
“I will find you again,” she promised.
Her mother tore the last plantain from its bunch.
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Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:06 pm
...go west. Go West, the little sparrow told her. His tiny eyes shone in the early morning light, not black like the ink blot on his chest, Nacarile realized, but the warm dark of the kukui nut. She marveled at the small bird, the stateliness of his plump, round body; she smiled, laughed.
“And what do you know of the West?” she prompted him.
His head tilted as if to say And what do you know of questioning me?
Nacarile sucked her lips in, stared shyly at the sparrow. He continued to watch her, his uncanny presence never wavering.
Go West.
“But the sun sets in the West.”
Go West.
“Why should I follow a dying sun?”
The sparrow’s head turned sharp, a flash of dull gray and off white and warm, rich brown – the color of her eyes behind the films of smoke that still hung low in the air. He shuffled down the branch he had alighted upon, clicked his beak.
The sun sets. The sun never dies, he told her. Go West, paradise is there.
The centaur’s heart stirred, lips parting to speak. Though she could not see the bird’s smile, she felt it. The stagnant warmth of the world around them, it all seemed to emanate from this one, tiny point. This little bird on this little branch. Nacarile brought her hand up, reached for the sparrow because she needed something to touch beyond the confines of her own body, her own solitude.
“I’m afraid to be alone.”
The sparrow’s wings fluttered. He stole into the air before she could chance to stroke his feathers.
You are not alone. Go West – your life is waiting beyond the setting sun.
Nacarile watched him until his body was little more than an ash against the skyline, until her eyes were stung dry with smoke. She took her first step forward.
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Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 12:42 pm
...saca tus cuernos al sol. "Caracol, col, col! Saca tus cuernos al sol! Que tu padre y tu madre ya los sacó!" Nacarile giggled and fingered the tiny, budding palm frond, watched the yellow snail retract into its shell and away from her prying fingers. She plucked him from the safety of his leaf, put his belly almost to her mouth.
“Saca tus cuernos al sol, que tu padre y tu madre ya los sacó!” she whispered again loudly, laughter humming in the soft timbre of her voice. She waited with a patience not found in fillies her age, her smile never wavering. The pad of her forefinger stroked the grooves of the delicate shell in hopes of coaxing the snail free from his home.
“Caracol, col, col….”
Slowly, like the wet petals of a flower, the snail unfurled himself and came peeking out, eyes lifting up to meet the beaming face of the bright-eyed child.
Nacarile, laughing her way through the story, told her mother that she had heard the snail squeal when he saw her, and pop! right back into his shell, mami! Oh, how very lazy of him! Caracol, col, col, saca tus cuernos al sol….
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