Author: miguel

A while ago, I found myself waiting for
you in a city on the other side of the world.
Rain had fallen for weeks, and even nights
were working overtime.

Was it in Dresden? No, rains there had turned white.
Vienna? No, only ghost rains of 1914.
Avignon? No, those rains spoke only French —
with an Italian accent.

Here in Rain City (wherever that may be)
Autumn had unbuttoned the golden dresses of the
poplars; they floated for a week in the clouds above
the other side of the river, like a canopy of incense.

At a window table in a café, I was drawing the terrazza
of an empty restaurant on the other side of the street.
Perhaps angels got hungry, perhaps you would appear.
Every night I was the only client there.

The waitress, round as a drum, and with the
voice of a little girl, often paused to
look at my drawing, and then at the colors.
She never mentioned rain.

Was it an aria from Tosca that she hummed?
(Or was that aria from La Traviata?) Perhaps it was only the
echo of vesper bells from the cathedral on the
other side of the City that opened the windows?

Where ever you were, dear Angel, you were here.
After the rains grew bored and floated on
to bless other cities, hungry guests
appeard in the restaurant, their glasses empty.

The sketch of the terrazza will always be a
mess, never finished. It held nights and rains,
arias of Puccini, and vesper bells. It held me.
And I too, an other me, waiting for an other you.

A few months ago my friend Isabel Navarro Sánchez told me that she had nearly finished writing her new novel. Would I allow her to use one of my paintings for the cover of the book? Well, of course, and with pleasure and gratitude.

The Silence of The Willow (El Silencio del Sauce), with its intriguing cover, arrived in my California mailbox a couple of days ago. The novel begins with a woman who disappears and continues as a story about daughters and mothers, about secrets, jealosies and vengeance, where home is not a haven, nor a refuge, but a place of menace and danger.

It has not yet been translated into English, but I’m enjoying the shadows and suspense and I’m sure Spanish speakers who love elegantly written mysteries will enjoy reading it too.

You don’t have to imagine where home is any more than you have to imagine the dirt under your feet. You’re standing on cement or asphalt? Jump up and down a couple of times. You’d prefer more solid evidence? Well, in April, the crew of Artemis II on its voyage from earth to the dark side of the moon, sent us photographs of a blue sphere spinning in the immeasurable darknes of space: photos of Earth, their home, your home too, my home, our home.

Where in the photos is the border between Russia and Ukraine? Between Israel and Gaza? Can you see Washington, Tel Aviv or Moscow? How about a forest or a freeway, or a house? Even less visible is a white-haired man in a little town near the edge of an ocean. He’s in the last chapter of a long life and for months he has been drawing the flower a friend gave to him in December. At that time, the gift was a brown sphere with two green sprouts emerging from its crown. But it grew, and to his surprise, he grew as well.

At first the flower was an “it.” Then in March it became a “she.” In April she became a “you.” And the artist who draws the “you” is not the same as the one who saw only an “it.”

Most flowers bloom in Spring and wither in Autumn. You opened your arms during the dark days of Winter. You never seemed as lovely and full of grace as when you began to wilt. Now your green has turned to brown and your petals look like shrivled butterflies. Sleep well in Summer and bloom again when rain and snow return. I’ll be here at home and welcome you with brushes and colors.