We do not wake up, there is a valley of sorrow and misery, and in the center a dark demon glares with a hatred we cannot understand, a knowledge we cannot see.
We know nothing, we are nothing, we sit in a valley of weeping for ourselves, we realize there is no one to help us, and we wish that when the heart of love is finally destroyed andwe can fall into ourselves, into our true nature.
It is sad, but from it comes the healing, when we realize that we are sick in ourselves and we must reach out to a partner who will touch us in the wound, so that the poison may slowly be expelled, so we can live as an organism, as we were born to do.
I think we have to take the time to come to this realization that we want to stay with our minds.
We have been damaged by our children by ourselves and by other forces, and the hardest thing to do is to come to terms with this.
It is easy for a mother to give birth, but it is hard for her to watch her child grow into a whole and healthy man while she is always behind.
She feels anxious, frightened of losing what little she has left to give. Men do not share this fear. They are not even afraid of death.
They think they know the world and their problems, and they will always keep fighting.
We do not even need to understand their logic nor to get inside their heads. They are in the middle of an existential war they are always fighting against something they do not even know.
So men do not need to fear, and if they do, it is because they are hard and cold, with their knives and guns and dogs that bite.
A mother is afraid:
if her child will not return from school
if he will not come back after a quarrel
if he is running around with another girl
if he does not read.
A man is afraid of something else, i don’t know what.
We are not animals.
We are thinking beings.
We feel too much,
we talk too much,
we have to communicate our deepest thoughts to others,
then we must understand their thought processes and their weaknesses, and they must understand ours.
But we must learn to communicate with ourselves, to love ourselves, because as a creature we are vulnerable.
But also as a thinker, we are loved, we can love other creatures, our children, even the world.
At one time there was a wild animal hunting in the hills, when he came upon a village it was a very sad time.
The men had been working hard and not having any luck.
But the women were crying,
saying, “You do not need to work so hard, my beloved men,
there are big dreams, there are old dreams,
as old as the hills. We love you so much that we wait for you,
we send you messages when you do not see them, we touch your dreams
with our minds, we send you questions, we can tell you how we feel
for you, because the animal knows that he is loved.”
The women watched the animal as he ate and drank,
smelled the air, noticed their faces.
Then he got up from his seat, moved through the village,
and let himself be known.
He held out his paw to the men and it was accepted with joy.
Some ran to touch him.
He led the women into the village and they welcomed him into their homes,
and wept for joy.
I thought, “The creatures know they are loved.”
But they also know that they are afraid of dying, that their own blood can come to kill them.
I thought, “The animals are in danger, too.”
But they do not know this, because they are not close to their fear, they do not realize it is very close to them,
close in their minds.
And when I thought these things, I heard a noise in the jungle,
the sound of a motor.
It made my ears ring, but it did not frighten me.
The animal took a few steps toward it.
But it did not know where it was coming from.
And when it did, it took off.
In the meantime, in the village, all of the men had stopped working.
They were talking.
They were trying to understand each other.
They were moving their hands in the air.
They were communicating.
Some of the women went to touch the men.
They started crying.
Some held their husbands and children.
They were giving away the little they had.
Their own blood had turned to blood of the animal.
That is why they are always thinking of the animals.
Then they saw me.
I was walking with the animal,
and we had gone to a cave.
I think the animal wanted to give something to the women.
I thought,
“the animal is giving away a piece of himself,
but I will stay with him.”
So I went inside with him.
Inside, the air was cold.
It was dark.
But I had a light,
and my blood made a light.
There was a pungent smell.
The eyes of all the creatures were fixed on me.
But they did not frighten me.
I have been here before.
I was here when I made the first birds.
:: 01.27.2021 ::
E.P. Robles | Poetry 