The following is a partial translation of “¡Insurgentas! (The Sea in March). Letter 6. e.,” from which “The Story of the Night
Air” is taken.
Originally published on March 8th, 2000.
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¡Insurgentas!
(The Sea in March)
Letter 6.
e.
To the women who fell
To those who follow
To those who will come…
There goes my warm letter,
dove forged in fire,
with its two wings bent
and the address in the middle.
Bird which only pursues
for nest and air and sky,
flesh, hands, and eyes yours,
and the space of your breath.
Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández
Letters take time and are little
to say what one wants to.
Jaime Gil de Biedma
[…]
Las insurgentas zapatistas…
Now, this
time, I want to talk more about one of them. About this woman I can tell you
that she is another one of us, but for me she is not another one, she is one
and only. The Sea is not a literary
character, she is a woman, she is a Zapatista. She was the architect of the
national and international consultation of one year ago (and an important part
of each and every one of the peace initiatives in these six years) and, as frequently
occurs with the Zapatistas, her anonymity is double due to the fact that she is
a woman. Now, since it is March 8th, I would like to make it clear
that, although being the public figure is my duty most of the time, many
initiatives are authorship, in their design and concretion, of other compañeros
and compañeras. In the case of the consultation, it was a woman, a Zapatista: The Sea. Just last March 21st,
she took her backpack and joined her unit…
Also it must be remembered that in that
consultation the mobilization of women (in Mexico and in the world) was the
backbone: in the contact office (national and international), in the teams, in
the committees, in the voting tables, in the actions, women (of all sizes,
origins, conditions, colors, ages) were the majority. So to greet the women who
struggle and, above all, the women who struggle and are not seen in various
senses, the insurgentas, these lines
go out. To celebrate them I have asked for the accompaniment of a wise old indigenous
man: Viejo Antonio, and from the most intrepid and gallant knight which these
worlds have seen: Durito (aka Nebuchadnezzar, aka Don Durito de la Lacandona,
aka Black Shield, aka Sherlock Holmes, aka Durito Heavy Metal, aka whatever he
thinks up). Well then, happy Women’s Day to the rebellious women, to the
faceless, to the insurgentas…
Lovesick
[In an untranslated portion of this
communiqué, Durito gives Marcos advice regarding Marcos’s unrequited love for The
Sea, on the condition that Marcos follow
his advice. Durito’s advice involves the use of a “spell” that will only work
if The Sea is aware that she is being
enchanted. Specifically, Durito instructs Marcos to bring her a good memory “to
see ahead and far, one which makes her lift her view and travel it long and
deep.”]
P.S WHICH FULFILLS THE DUPLICITY: Here I
annex for you the memory which I gifted to The
Sea. That is how this Letter 6. e. gets
its double wing and sets off on the flight necessary for every letter. Sale y
vale:
Tale for a Night of Anguish
I tell The Sea that,
for some reason that I am unable to understand, Viejo Antonio could have read
somewhere the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Instead of becoming impassioned
with xenophobia, Viejo Antonio took from the whole world everything possible
for good, without regard for the land that gave birth to it. Upon referring to
good people from other nations, Viejo Antonio used the term “internationals,”
and the term “foreigners” only for those foreign to the heart, no matter that
they were of his same color, language, and race. “Sometimes even in one same
blood there are foreigners,” Viejo Antonio would say to explain the absurd
foolishness of passports.
But, I tell The
Sea, the story of nationalities is another story. That which I remember now
makes reference to the night and its paths.
It was a pre-dawn morning of those with which March
affirms its delusional calling. A day with a sun like a seven-point whip, was
followed by an afternoon of gray storm clouds. For the evening a cold wind
already built up black clouds above a shy and watchful Moon.
Viejo Antonio had let the morning and the afternoon
pass with the same calmness with which he now lit his cigarette. A bat
fluttered around us for an instant, surely upset by the light with which Viejo
Antonio gave life to his cigarette. And, like the tzotz, something suddenly appeared amidst the night…
The Story of the Night Air
When
the greatest gods, those who birthed the world, the very first ones, thought
about how and for what they were going to do what they were going to do, they
made their assembly where each one took out their word to know it and for the
others to hear it. Like this, each one of the very first gods went taking out a
word and threw it to the middle of the assembly, and there it bounced and
arrived to another god who grabbed it and threw it again, and just like a ball
the word went from one place to another until everyone understood it and then
the greatest gods, who were those who birthed all the things which we call
worlds, made their agreement. One of the agreements which they found when they
took out their words was that each path have its walker and each walker its
path. And so they went birthing complete things, that is, each one with their
each thing.
That
was how they birthed the air and the birds. In other words there was not first
air and then birds for them to walk it, nor were the birds made first and then the
air for them to fly it. They did the same with the water and the fish that swim
it, the earth and the animals that roam it, the path and the feet that walk it.
But
speaking of the birds, there was one which protested a great deal against the
air. This bird said that better and faster he would fly if the air was not
opposed to him. This bird grumbled a great deal because, although his flight
was agile and quick, he always wanted it to be more and better, and if it could
not be so it was because, he said, the air was turning into an obstacle. The
gods were disgusted by the great deal of bad talk coming from this bird which
in the air flew and about the air complained.
So,
as punishment, the first gods took away his feathers and the light from his
eyes. Naked they sent him into the cold of the night and blind he had to fly.
So his flight, before graceful and light, became disorderly and clumsy.
But
then situated and after many blows and stumbles, this bird got the trick of
seeing with the ears. Talking to the things, this bird, that is the tzotz,
orients its path and knows the world
which responds to it in a language that only it knows how to listen to. Without
feathers that dress it, blind, and with a nervous and hasty flight, the bat rules
the mountain night and no animal walks the dark airs better than it.
From
this bird, the tzotz, the bat,
the true men and women learned to give great and powerful worth to the spoken
word, to the sound of thought. They learned also that the night contains many
worlds and that it is necessary to know how to listen to them to go taking them
out and flourishing them. With words the worlds which the night has are born.
Being said lights are made, and so many they are that they do not fit on the
earth and many end up settling down in the sky. That is why they say that the
stars are born on the ground.
The
greatest gods birthed also the men and the women, not so that one would be the
other’s path, but rather so that they at the same time would be the other’s
path and walkers. Different they made them to be together. So that they would
love each other the greatest gods made the men and women. That is why the night
air is the most best for being flown, for being thought, for being talked to,
and for being loved.
Viejo Antonio finishes his story in the March of over
there. In the March of here, The Sea
sails a dream where the word and the bodies undress, the worlds walk without
colliding, and love can fly off without anguish. Up above, a star discovers an
empty place on the ground and quickly it comes down, leaving a momentary sketch
on the window of this pre-dawn morning. On the recorder Mario Benedetti, an Uruguayan
from the whole world, says: “You may leave, I’ll stay.”
ANOTHER
PS: Did The Sea accept the
spell? It is, as I don’t know who would say, an unknown.
Vale de nuez. Cheers and March, as always, comes in
like a lion.
El Sup
waiting as is law, that is to say, smoking…
English translation
copyright © 2014 by Henry Gales. All rights reserved.
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