Green, I want you green
We move. We move, almost as fast as light, faster than anything manmade ever went before. We move; we move
(FrÃo, frÃo, como el agua del rÃo.)
through this vastness, past planets, past comets, past yellow suns, red suns, giants and dwarfs. We move past black holes and nebulae and stars turned cinders. We move so fast
(Verde viento. Verdes ramas)
yet no faster than dreams, or memory - or mourning. The words, these lines I once whispered, drip slowly: just a handful per century - a few words, a fragment, half an image. Then again the darkness, the silence, while we move - almost as fast as light.
I sleep. While the ship moves through endless silence, endless darkness, I sleep. The part of me that dreams moves back, through space, through time: faster than anything man could ever hope to forge, my dreams go back - instantly. They inform me, they tell my sleeping form that nothing has changed, that all’s the same, without hope, without
(El barco sobre la mar)
her.
The words of Lorca drive the dreams back into hiding. For a moment I’m awake but without thoughts, without memories; without loss and without hope. For a moment I am those whispered words: beyond meaning, beyond reason - just a sound. Then the avalanche, then the onslaught. Then I know myself, my past, my dreams, my loss.
“Ahasverus…!”
The ship’s mind envelops me. Its question marks move over me. I am read. I am understood. The ship obeys: I sleep. I dream.
First there’s a planet, a green-blue planet rushing through space, coming at us at great speed. It grows larger and larger, till it darkens the stars, replacing space itself. Then the planet explodes, scatters like a flock of birds - and from its centre, its red and bleeding core, a statue rises like a splendid wave, like slow stone lightning,
(her, it’s)
a statue of smoke and longing. She takes the ship in her hand, cracks it open like a robin’s egg. She breathes upon my sleeping form. She grows me like a hyacinth - and then we dance. She holds me like she did before. She smiles at me and whispers my blood into her flesh. We love. We lie among the stars. It’s almost like before - before
(Y el caballo en la montaña.)
she died.
I made so many enemies. I made even more money. Enough to buy a small country, enough to bribe whom I needed to own. Enough to keep my family happy, and fat and greedy for more of the same. Enough to build this ship. When we left, I left behind all my money, all my assets and a pack of very well-paid lawyers. What I left was enough to leave no awkward questions.
“Ahasverus!”
The ship obeys: I sleep. We move. We move, almost as fast as light, faster than anything man-made ever went.
We move; we move. One century passes us by
(Verde carne)
and another
(pelo verde)
and another
(con ojos de frÃa plata.)
The words of Federico Garcia Lorca bleed through time, as I remember or dream a hill, a tree - and you in a peasant dress, your face half-hidden under an old straw hat you’d found in the attic. You pour the chilled, white wine. I read you one of Lorca’s poems, your favourite:
“Green, I want you green…”
You smile at me; you start to say something and then
(Ahasverus…!)
the car turns the corner and you look over your shoulder as you
(Ahasverus…)
cross the street
(Ahas…)
and you
(…verus)
die again. Again, you die on me.
The ship obeys: I sleep.
The search goes on. So many galaxies, so many stars, so many planets - and so much time. Time for new stars to be moulded, new planets to be born. The search goes on for that one blue-green planet. Not a planet like earth but an exact same planet earth, where there is this poet - not a poet like Lorca but an other Lorca. Where there are those same hills and straw hats and chilled wine. Where you won’t look back over your shoulder, when you cross the road. Where you will live again. Where you will be with me again, forever.
We move. We move, almost as fast as light, faster than anything manmade ever went before. We move; we move. One century passes us by
(La sangre de tus venas en mi boca)
and another
(tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte.)
and another
(Verde que te quiero verde…)
The search goes on, through space, through time. There is enough of both to last us forever.