Playing my songs

God! How dusty the road was! For months I was walking across the US coast to coast, with my guitar, my long hair, and my backpack full of books, poetry, and a bundle of clothes.

The Arizona desert smiled at me in all its immense sobriety, with some cactus lost in the vastness of space, almost pointing to the sky above my head.

My songs kept me company along with certain Thoreau’s books. Every new village, lost in an America forgotten by God, seemed to me as crowded as a metropolis. In the drugstores I bought supplies for the following days: some canned beans, dried fruit, and biscuits. Continue reading “Playing my songs” →

The wooden boat

My body crawled forward through the mud of the swamp. It was raining in the meantime. I felt I could not move forward just with my own strength. I felt helpless in front of the narrow prospect of the arrival of the night, and the lack of a refuge.

I was resigned I could not get out of it. I was resigned but I was not desperate. I knew it would last for a long time that crossed, but for the love of life I had to do it, for the sake of what I would find at the end of this absurd obstacle, I had to resist.

Summoning my will, I stopped for a moment, and with my legs immersed in stagnant water and mud, I looked up at the sky, my eyes opened wide to the rain, and out of anger I cried out, with all my breath in my body: Continue reading “The wooden boat” →

In the Dunes

The light of the stars just lit up the darkness of the night. A fire in front of his eyes crackled sincerely. He saw. He saw the spirits of the flames dancing against the darkness and telling the exact same story, repeated unaltered through the centuries of what it meant imprisonment and what it meant freedom.

He remembered his teacher, the words that sometimes repeated him:

“One day you will see them … They dance, dance in the fire” Continue reading “In the Dunes” →

Lauryn

There was music that night at The Drunken Barrel. With your eyes lost in the void, you were absorbed to follow the thread of the notes and that absolute void between your thoughts.

You were so fragile my friend. A little bird fallen from the nest. With your dark eyes, red lipstick, too red, eyelashes well highlighted, with all that rimmel, and the cheeks flushed with blush.

Your black hair framed your face. And even if you seemed lost and alone in your world, your heart was beating fast, one hundred and twenty beats per minute, as if you were on the street running at breakneck speed in the fog. Continue reading “Lauryn” →

Lao Tsu

The light of the sun, when it rises, always reminds me of your hazel eyes, the long eyelashes of those who knew how to dream, and your oriental smile of a boy born and raised in the Dragon’s land.

Indomitable heart, generous warrior with an open smile, an explosive laugh like the fires of the Chinese New Year. God had made you so beautiful, Lao Tsu, and even if you were just a boy, you were appreciated by the elders, and loved by the people of your village.

Defying sleep, every morning you came out of your little house, to go see the dawn, to fill your eyes with all that beauty. The bamboo canes, the ears of rice that came out of the lake, the sky that gradually brightened, and the Sun peeping out to the east, red and golden like a big orange. Continue reading “Lao Tsu” →

The First Snow

I liked looking into your eyes when you were absorbed watching out from the window glass. You still looked like a child, with that expectation that shone in your face, hidden just by the collar of the wool coat.

With your brown hair, long enough to frame your face, and the clear eyes of who after all, in spite of everything, had never betrayed himself. How old were you? Thirty or ninety? You, who had lived experiences, and always fell in love with everything.

You waited for the first snow, as a blessing, as a good reason to cry, to hope, to believe in the return of something, that you knew to have left, like everything else, in the river of time… Continue reading “The First Snow” →

Following the Sacred Deer.

We breathed heavily through the forest. Clouds of white steam came out of our mouth. Bows and arrows on the shoulders, the fast pace of our steps. We followed the trail of the Sacred Deer, Lord of the Woods, walking for days to his search.

We had interrogated the runes to know where to go. Where was Madim, the Sword of the Force, the weapon that carried the Ancient Warrior? The sword that had hidden the Druids in the forest.

The runes had answered us saying to look for the place where the Sacred Deer rests, down there, near the Source. The Sacred Deer, the Spirit of the Wood, the Keeper of the Forest. Nobody had ever seen him… Continue reading “Following the Sacred Deer.” →