Found a window through where the wind blows poems

I found a window through where the wind blows poems, brought from the sea by a gentle breeze which wraps them in a salty spray that splashes my face with words. Ignoring where they come from, I know only they came in herds, blown from the remote yet confining sea, the same sea which once brought us, Portuguese, to raise here this window through where poems rush today at the pace of ancient dreams of today and before. Simple poems, traveling dreams of long journeys walked and rocked by the waves that pushed us, that push us still, that push me and over and over bring me to unknown destinations, enchanted by the sweat chant of a mermaid called wander, the very same chant which some day had us sail around aimlessly. As a fisherman siting in the fort’s window, I only have to let the wind blow my pages to catch the poems in my web of paper and words, scribbled rapidly to uselessly try to catch them all. But it is impossible, there are too many poems, blown over my head to collide against the windows of the white houses that populate this place, against the blue of the boats that once and yet again leave the port only to be able to return, against the chant of the seagulls, immense cloud that populates the skies of this land once lost here only to be found again, one and many times, so that it can be lost again in the hope of finding it forever. A window, through where the wind blows dreams of an endless journey, promise of a world full of new dreams, strange nectar that inebriates me and makes me addict to this place from where I can’t escape, chained to the streets that slowly start to know me, to the people with whom I start to be mistaken, to the rocks where the sea arrives roughly, to the bay where the sea becomes tranquil, to the sun that sets every day, here as elsewhere, but which here unlike anywhere else suspends me in a never ending original sunset, fallen in love with the gentle caress of the sun touching in the water, suspended in this obvious and repetitive common-place called sunset but which here becomes unique every day, passionate, tormentingly beautiful. I found a window through where the wind blows poems, which origin I ignore, which destination is unknown, but I don’t really care, I just open my pages, my eyes, my nostrils, breathing in, breathing very much, filling my lungs with a new air that renews each day I spend here, languidly, forgotten here as this old window, hanging over the sea while waiting carelessly for it to bring me back home, someday.

A friend

I’m going to craft you with works, my friend, fill with letters every wrinkle of your face, while you gaze at the vague horizon as an old sailor counting the tides, waiting indefinitely for the boat that will never arrive to take you from here. I’m going to craft you with works, my friend, fill with dialogues these endless silences of ours, countless chats where our words where never lost in a translation that never existed, where I understood you better than many who mumble purposeless gibberish, lost in the illusion that by filling the world with words they will fill the void they carry inside. No, we didn’t need elaborate dictionaries, literate translators, or any strange magic enabling us to understand the unintelligible and learn in a second what many take a lifetime to learn. No, we didn’t need anything, just a simple and hidden smile, that smile you bring inside you, my friend, that smile you show to only a few but which you offer with you heart, that very same heart you touch countless times with your hard-worked hand, crafted by time and the harshness of your life. Yet you keep on, you survive the harshness with by offering your smile, expecting only the hug from a friend, like you, whom I’ll carry with me in the memory of this land, your land, in the memory of this strange country which will entrench in my soul more deeply than I can think of, and which I know I will remember as home when I’m lost somewhere, my friend, a home I’ll have here also because I found you. I’m going to craft you with works, my friend, even though they were not necessary for me to call today as a friend.

(in honor of Ahmed, restless doorman of Hostel El Pacha, simple person, best cook of Essaouira and, above all, a friend)

Essaouira, Morocco, November/December 2010