We have four days left and the
tide is coming in.
The clank of glass in the bar
signifies the end of the night,
and cheers to you I'm headed
down the same road from which I came.
Where have you been for
four weeks and a day and why
are you still waiting to hear
me on the other end.
The phone calls from nowhere
probably came more frequently
than you'd like to think.
The country code came louder in my
ears and the drone of the receiver
never gave me your voice; it is empty noise.
Instead I heard your ghost and
hurt for words you hadn't thought to say.
Someone whispered in my ear and reminded me
that there are a thousand kinds of energy
and I'm only walking in one line.
The tight-rope walking and the soft
spoken sentences make etchings in our minds,
like something solid,
and I take them with me like the scratch
and rhythmic types of mysterious noises
will hold me over 'til morning.
I won't sleep and I won't speak
until the morning
because the wind blows in the walls,
out of the walls
of the old Spanish Hacienda.
Where were you the night I fell upon
silence and gave up my words.
When I couldn't reach you even
if I screamed.
And my teeth chattered in the night
as I tasted the chill of humid frost.
I was shaking and waking and hating
that I couldn't speak to you.
I couldn't have said it all in
a letter that I never sent.
I couldn't have said it all in
a phone call from close to home.
I couldn't have told you
that the way we tasted the world
was like celebrating christmas in June.
But someone whispered in my ear
and I whispered back:
is that God?
And no one answered.
I whispered and it sounded like
the breeze through the plants
and I felt it like a breath
across my neck. For a moment
I felt your hand across my back
and I knew I was still far away.
I heard the whisper in my ear,
I swear I did. I think he was
just asking who I was worshiping
and I answered without regret:
no one. Who are you?
The body of water that has inhabited my
life at all times has come to follow me
and remind me of its strength. I am laughing
because it is so big and rolling there,
but it is so small and unassuming here.
It is small and I am home and the river was
the hum and drum of the world and I have been
pretending that my river and my lake are not the
same kind of world. I have been pretending that
we cannot feel a thing, because a man built it here
in my yard.
The river held me in the night and especially in
the evening when it enveloped me like
a tight gripping sweater. It filled the silence,
always, and told me to listen close.
What happens when you listen to the river,
yaku of the sacha of Ecuador.
Who are you, who are you
my living sacha runa?
