***
1.
Everything is quiet and empty.
The early hours of the 24th brought
a balsamic storm
and there are promises of more rain
for tonight.
The only promises
for the year’s end.
***
2.
I study the canopies of the trees
and the movement of the clouds
behind the buildings.
A bird perched for quite a while
on the blue water tank
like a panoramic inspector.
***
3.
I walk barefoot on the terrace
among the prickly pears and the snails.
I rest my arms on the railing
in a contemplative pose.
I do not understand the sketches
drawn by the weather
with moss and soot
on the neighboring walls.
***
4.
With the gazes of all the strangers
I looked in the eyes today
I now contemplate the profile of the buildings
beneath my bamboo shadow.
The late afternoon sky seems like a jumble
where someone has just rinsed some brushes.
***
5.
Everyone flees in summer
toward the coasts and the mountains
where we accept whatever the sun brings:
nature, distance, and evocation.
Like Vivi and Leo
who rode off on their motorcycles
to visit a ceiba tree
near the Pejibaye River.
***
6.
I gave two plants to a friend.
I researched how to care for them
and now I know their names.
They had been written on small signs
buried in the nursery pots.
Painter’s palette.
Everlasting.
***
7.
Again lost on the street
I seek any kind of illumination
in the movement of the shadows
across saffron-colored buildings
and in the fringe of gold foil that
gleams on the bicycle’s handlebars.
***
8.
I finished reading the book about childhood
of Walter Benjamin in Berlin.
Many impressions and memories
about his old collection of postcards.
I reread passages about butterfly-hunting
and spending time in courtyards.
Afterwards I did the laundry and watered a bonsai.
***
9.
My sister sent me photographs
of her vacation in Quepos. In one
you can see my father from behind descending
down some rocks toward the Pacific
as if he had found
a shortcut to escape
with the simple things of the world.
***
10.
There are dawns when a single lap around the block
isn’t enough and you must go further.
A journey to think
about what dissolves
and what the past reconstitutes.
Until I stop in front
of one of those display windows
that stay lit
all night with a cold light.
I look at the mannequins in branded clothes
and wonder how I could have left her alone
in the darkness of the room.
***
11.
Along the train’s corridor
a seller of Christmas lights passed by,
all wrapped in the Christmas lights
lit up.
“There are a hundred lights,” he said.
“Try them before taking.”
Then a woman passed by
distributing religious stamps.
“They have no price,” she said.
“The price is what the heart tells you.”
***
12.
Trees tilted by the breeze
and the diagonal lines
of the power lines.
There are also blurred clouds
in shades of blue, gray, and white.
And the refraction of sunlight
through tiny droplets
of atmospheric water. A flash
that forced him to unsheathe the camera
and shoot in a low-angle at what
moved him with feeling.
—————————————
Author: Jeymer Gamboa. Title: Fragmentos de la vida anterior. Publisher: Nutrias espaciales. Sales: All Your Books.
