Categoría: Poetry

I

I think of her.
All the time.
When the world is quiet.
When the world screams.
When the coffee goes cold,
when the wind slips through the cracks
and there’s nothing left to do but endure.

I think of her even when I don’t want to.
Even when it hurts.
Even when my body begs to forget
and my mind refuses to obey.

I think of her the way one thinks of a wound:
with anger,
with tenderness,
with thirst,
with every goddamn hope that it might heal.

And suddenly,
just like that,
a word from her —spoken in passing,
without knowing what it meant—
arrives.
It slips between my ribs
and mends me.

Not completely.
Not forever.
But just enough to survive another day.

Bless that hour.
Even if silence returns
to shatter me once again.

II

You don’t tell the cloud
how to rain.
It comes down on its own
when May splits open,
and lets itself fall.

You don’t tell the sunflower
when to open to the sky.
It wakes in September,
and the field —suddenly—
changes shape.

Frost doesn’t ask.
It simply shows up.
And in December,
the rooftops awaken
as if they’d dreamed
of heaven.

And you don’t ask either.
You just arrive.
And my soul comes undone.

You barely look at me,
and already my world is ending.
As if you were
June, mist, bloom,
August, hail,
wet earth,
fog over the cornfield,
the wind in the jacarandas,
lightning before thunder,
the cricket’s song at the edge of sleep,
the first leaf falling in October,
the river’s voice in January,
hearth smoke in November,
February’s silent sorrow.
The tremble of the land in March,
the scent of fire in clothes,
the rooster’s echo at odd hours,
April’s dust along the roads,
the sun cracking stones in July,
the warm shade of a ramada,
ripened fruit falling on its own,
the night’s quiet crackle,
the longing for something that hasn’t happened yet
but is already becoming,
autumn, winter, spring, summer.

It just happens.
Like you.
Like this.
Like loving without cure.

III

I woke without the usual sweat.
The cold came close,
but didn’t touch me.

The sky —
gray, low, weary—
spilled in silence.

And I
Inside
left myself rain.

IV

Man is born good.
But then he sees those eyes
brown, deep,
like forests in autumn,
like wine spilled in the dusk,
eyes that cry and burn,
that beg and condemn,
eyes of dark honey,
of shadow that caresses.
And it’s them that corrupt him.

V

Maybe she doesn’t answer
because she doesn’t know what to do with tenderness.
It slips through her fingers
like water she never asked for
to quench her bitterness.

No one ever said sweet things to her.
No flowers ever came,
no words turned to shade
for the sun in her days.
So when I speak to her
—when I say she’s
like good rain on dry earth—
she recoils,
as if the wind were speaking
or a ghost returned just to say:
“Look, there’s love here too.”

But I go on.
I go on because I know
that one day her eyes will believe me.
And that day,
the world will feel less arid.

VI

It’s not for lack of flesh,
or fear of touching her.
It’s just that what awakens in me when I see her
isn’t flame,
but breeze.

I imagine her with a basket of oranges,
walking barefoot across a warm patio,
laughing at something silly I said.
I picture her sitting beside me
as the sun slowly hides
behind the hill,
and the coffee grows cold on the table
because her voice holds me longer than the sip.

I don’t want her body,
I want her shadow next to mine
on the dry ground,
her steady step as we walk to the river.
I want her to tell me the names of flowers,
to teach me to make thin tortillas,
to mend unraveled seams,
to laugh when the corn disobeys me,
to sing me joyfully at dawn.

Yes, I desire her—
but like one longs for rain in May:
so what’s inside me may bloom.
I desire her like one longs for shared silence,
like you cherish a stone to sit on
as dusk unravels the day.

I want her eyes to care for me,
to name me without a word,
to keep me in her palm
like a good seed.

I imagine her for long things:
for afternoons with bread and honey,
for walks down old streets,
for pointless chats,
for falling asleep to her telling
stories of her childhood.

It’s not desire that burns.
It’s affection.
And affection doesn’t burn:
it lights.

A root that stays hidden.
     The scent of corn as it bursts on the flame.
         A flower no one planted, blooming alone by the roadside.
A cloud’s shadow over thirsty soil.
             A candle burning for no reason.
         Night’s silence under stars.
     An old page filled with words.
The smell of wood just beginning to burn.
     Clay that remembers your touch.
         A caress you didn’t expect.
             A gaze that lingers longer than the day.
                 A breeze that comes when you thought you couldn’t go on.
             A delicious bite you never asked for.
         A sip of clear water.
     The song of a bird you didn’t know was there.
Clothes on the line, smelling of sun.
Earth soaked after so long.
               A door that opens slowly.
          The brush of a hand in the market.
          A dog that follows though it’s never met you.
     A pine’s shadow at noon.
A star appearing just before sleep.
         The word left unsaid—but understood.
                 A long embrace with no explanation.
The voice that softly says your name.
         A scar that no longer hurts.
                 Light slipping through the crack.
         A folded blanket in the corner.
The promise never broken.
         A flower on the hat of the dead.
                 A warm stone in the river.
         An empty chair that waits.
The sound of grinding stone before dawn.
         A song heard faintly from afar.
                 Coffee poured without asking.
         Waiting—without despair.
The memory that brings no sorrow.
     The calm after thunder.
         A soft “stay a little longer.”
             The moon descending over the granary.
                 A word written clumsily.
                     The sky smelling of uinumo.
                         A plant growing strong with no one to tend it.
Dark soil.
     The sun that warms, not burns.
         A tear that never falls.
             The silence that stays with you.
                 The baked clay.
                     Freshly baked bread.
The shining star.
             The night that holds no fear.
     The soul that never leaves.

00:0000:00

Last night, the news reached me: Tata Mateo Rodríguez had passed away.

We weren’t close friends, nor family, not even neighbors. But the news, like the lingering note of a final chord, stayed with me—resonating softly in the air.

In the rhythm of our days, between the routine and the ideas that cling to memory, something else lingers. We become something hard to explain—like part of a song that never quite ends. Music, always nearby, shadows us. And when it suddenly goes quiet, the silence is jarring, like missing a step on the stairs.

I imagine the sheet of music where Tata Mateo wrote down his last abajeño, the instrument now resting, still—no longer trembling under his hands, no longer breathing his soul into song. That silence, thick and heavy, settles like the final strum of a fading guitar, like a trombone waiting for a breath that will never come.

Will someone ever play those final pieces? Will we one day hear them, and come to understand just a bit more how he listened to the world?

Tata Mateo passed in his hometown, Ahuirán, on an April Monday, in the bright heat of Holy Week, beneath a blue sky that seemed to mirror eternity. He was farewelled with the very music he loved—the music he composed. The bajo slapped its rhythm, abajeños soared in the distance, trying to summon a dance, though the voices that rose were not joyful shouts, but cries of grief. But is it truly a loss? Tata Mateo’s mark is eternal—alive in his family, his friends, and above all, in the notes he joyfully drew from paper, as if knowing that by playing them, life could become immortal.

He was not seen off in solemn silence—how do you pay respects with quiet to someone who lived through song? No, his farewell came with violins, trombones, bajos, and guitars—and with every tear mixing into the dust kicked up like footsteps on the earth.

The mourning turned into pirekuas, sung in the raspy voices of those who know that we sing to keep memories alive.

Those who loved him gathered, remembering his joy and talent, telling the stories that made him legendary—like the time he cheekily named a song “How’s That Eye of Yours?” or when he boldly asked his own orchestra to play his compositions.

And so, as they returned him to the earth, life gently gathered him back, and in the sky, white sunflowers became soft clouds—carrying him from this world to the next.

In the middle of this funeral song, one thing becomes clear: though music may fall silent in an instrument, it continues to vibrate in those who dare to listen, to feel, and to remember. Because Tata Mateo—like all who truly love music—never really leaves. He becomes a seed. He becomes an echo.