The Message - a long prose poem

The Message

I came Martin, and you were not here. I sat on the doorstep of your house leaning against the door and I thought that somewhere in the city, a wave that crosses the air, you were intuiting that I was here. This is your little piece of garden; your mimosa leans out of the wall, and when the children walk by they rip off the leaves from the most accessible branches…Above the ground, planted around the wall, very straight and serious, I see some flowers that have leaves like swords. They are navy blue, they look like soldiers. They are very serious, very honest. You are a soldier. You march through life, one, two, one, two…All your garden is solid, it is like yourself, it has a vigor that inspires confidence.

Here I am against the wall of your house, like when I am against the wall of your back. The sun also shines against your windowpane and gradually it weakens because it’s late. The reddening sky has heated your honeysuckle and its odor becomes even more pervasive. It is sunset. The day will decline. Your neighbor walks by. I do not know if she has seen me. She is going to water her patch of garden.

I am bent across a sheet of paper and I write all this and think that now you’re on a street block walking hurriedly, determined as you usually are, in one of those streets where I imagine you to always be: in one of those gray monotone banquettes broken by the swirl of people who will take the bus. I came around to say I love you and since you’re not here, I write it. And I can hardly write because the sun is going down. There are more children passing by outside. And a lady with a pot warns, somewhat irritated: don’t shake my hand because I’ll throw the milk… And I leave this pencil, Martin, and I leave the notepad and let my arms hang uselessly over my body and I wait. I think I would have wanted to embrace you. I wish that I was older because youth carries with it the imperious, relentless need to relate everything with love.

A dog barks, it barks aggressively. I think it’s time for me to go. You know, I have always sat down and waited, even when I was a child. I am always docile when I am waiting for you. I know that all women wait. They await the future life, all those images forged in solitude, all those forests walking towards them, all this immense promise that is man; a pomegranate that suddenly opens and displays its red, shiny grains, a pomegranate as pulpy as a thousand mouths. Oh my love—we are all so full of inner portraits, so full of unappreciated landscapes.

Night has fallen and I can hardly see what I am scribbling on the notepad. I don’t perceive the letters. There where you don’t understand, in the empty spaces, in the gaps, put: I love you… I don’t know if I’ll put this sheet of paper on your wall. You’ve given me such respect for yourself…Maybe now I’ll leave, I’ll ask your neighbor to tell you I was here.