The Avila, deceptively simple spine of the Andes, forces my city into shadow or throws light upon it angrily as a painter's sunflower yellow paint would splatter after a palette clattering to the ground. Its gently rising swells easy on the eye from afar, lulls you to exhaustion and danger once they are climbed, and it was to these trails, etched between trees suffocated in vines like a shipbuilder's corded shoulder muscles, we ascended on an afternoon hot enough to make slimy snails lazy on limestone rock.
Behind my father's steady gait I followed, watching in fascination as his walking stick beat out a simply whistled tune that intertwined itself amongst the death vines and left notes hanging around rocky ledges that stared out into emptiness. Carefully I kept myself in step, and every fifth turn would fling a rock into open space to remind myself that the mountainside kills swiftly, immune to the sadness I would face were one of us to slip to the right. At those moments I would force my laughter out, weak and trembling laughter, and run up to reassure myself with my father's full-bearded smile beaming at me as he clambered up the next rise. "Not long now," he chuckled, patting the pocket he had told me at sunrise held a surprise for me "at the bottom of a waterfall." No fourth grader's mind can take that tantalizing of a secret, and mine was no different, casting its imaginative net further and further into the realm of fantasy as to what he could possibly have in his pocket that would connect to a waterfall. "Is it Gollum's ring? Is it the 'one ring?!" I whispered loudly, fearful of disturbing what could very well be Murkwood forest yet at the same time incapable of containing my excitement. My father had been reading "Lord of the Rings" to me for so long before bedtime that entering fantastical woods where wizards wandered in white seemed pretty normal to me at this point. "Ahhhhhh, so you'll see now won't you?"
"Ghollum, ack, ghollum, ack" I imitated, joyfully jumping over some boulders, their lower halves soaked in the tremulous trickle of a stream slowly gathering strength. "My presssssssious, triksy little hobi..."
"We're here," he announced suddenly. I took a last leap, and landed on the other side of the stream with a squelch into the thin coating of mud adorning the sides of a river uncoiling itself suddenly from out beneath a thundering waterfall around the next bend. "It looks like the forbidden pool," I stated in a hushed wonder, as my father put his fingers to his lips and motioned for me to listen to thunk thunk of water slapping the sheer rock face of pelo de bruja, named witch's hair for the slippery, treacherous climb you had to endure to reach the top. A meter from the pool's bank, he crouched low and held out both his fists, curled tightly. "Pick one."
Nervously, without looking at his hands and staring into his eyes glimmering in laughter behind glasses misted over with waterfall spray, I chose the left hand. "I'm left-handed, that's why," I stated, as if to reassure myself. Opening his hand carefully, both of us faces inches apart, "It's your tree son, it's going to be yours." Cupped carefully in a damp paper towel, the seed of a silk floss tree, my favorite tree of all, (slightly surpassing even my love of Ents) lay in tiny glory. "Oooooooh, dad, it's in perfect shape! Where did you find it?!"
"You're going to plant this, take care of it, make sure its healthy, watch it grow into the spiked giant you love." I had already taken the small spade that had been slapping forgotten against my leg in the previous hours of climbing, and his words were almost lost upon my digging frenzy. "Careful now, it has to be the just the right distance away from the riverbank and depth down to avoid being washed away."
"I know, I know dad!" jagged breaths now, "I've read it a thousand times in the Encyclopedia," doggedly droning the facts on to my father as I dug. He sat on his haunches staring at me like it was the first time he had seen me, the joy I suppose only a father can feel when his son pretends to jump from apprentice to master in a matter of seconds. "It's done! It's finished!" chucking the spade aside roughly only to take the seed lightly in my hands, eyes lit up with a fervor that years in the future would unearth beneath the buzzing humming of an artist's needle. Gently I laid the seed down in the hole, soil like soft peat breathing a peaceful song to me as I patted the clods of dirt back over the seed. I threw my arms around my dad, dark imprints of dirty fingers on his back from my hands, and said, "I hope it grows to be as strong and tall as you dad. Or even Treebeard."
...it was four a.m. when the thunder of
equatorial rain began to pound
the aluminum siding of the church beside my building.
my eyes popped open
brother sound asleep below my top bunk fortress.
irises shifting lightning fast
from chocolate brown to hazel
as slivers of light do to my eyes after midnight darkness...
motionless,
a slow exhausted smile crept across
my face, a veiled snapshot only childhood excitement can attain.
snug and warm as freshly baked bread
i
tuned all my childish senses to
the nature surrounding my concrete city
pouring its heart out in white ribbons
and sound-slashes against my silk-floss seed
emptying its sky in howls that
shake our apartment's sliding living room windows...
and as i lay there,
cognizant of being sole spectator in this trophy display
of Caracas beauty
the dark corners of my mind began slowly to crawl into sunshine.
Behind my father's steady gait I followed, watching in fascination as his walking stick beat out a simply whistled tune that intertwined itself amongst the death vines and left notes hanging around rocky ledges that stared out into emptiness. Carefully I kept myself in step, and every fifth turn would fling a rock into open space to remind myself that the mountainside kills swiftly, immune to the sadness I would face were one of us to slip to the right. At those moments I would force my laughter out, weak and trembling laughter, and run up to reassure myself with my father's full-bearded smile beaming at me as he clambered up the next rise. "Not long now," he chuckled, patting the pocket he had told me at sunrise held a surprise for me "at the bottom of a waterfall." No fourth grader's mind can take that tantalizing of a secret, and mine was no different, casting its imaginative net further and further into the realm of fantasy as to what he could possibly have in his pocket that would connect to a waterfall. "Is it Gollum's ring? Is it the 'one ring?!" I whispered loudly, fearful of disturbing what could very well be Murkwood forest yet at the same time incapable of containing my excitement. My father had been reading "Lord of the Rings" to me for so long before bedtime that entering fantastical woods where wizards wandered in white seemed pretty normal to me at this point. "Ahhhhhh, so you'll see now won't you?"
"Ghollum, ack, ghollum, ack" I imitated, joyfully jumping over some boulders, their lower halves soaked in the tremulous trickle of a stream slowly gathering strength. "My presssssssious, triksy little hobi..."
"We're here," he announced suddenly. I took a last leap, and landed on the other side of the stream with a squelch into the thin coating of mud adorning the sides of a river uncoiling itself suddenly from out beneath a thundering waterfall around the next bend. "It looks like the forbidden pool," I stated in a hushed wonder, as my father put his fingers to his lips and motioned for me to listen to thunk thunk of water slapping the sheer rock face of pelo de bruja, named witch's hair for the slippery, treacherous climb you had to endure to reach the top. A meter from the pool's bank, he crouched low and held out both his fists, curled tightly. "Pick one."
Nervously, without looking at his hands and staring into his eyes glimmering in laughter behind glasses misted over with waterfall spray, I chose the left hand. "I'm left-handed, that's why," I stated, as if to reassure myself. Opening his hand carefully, both of us faces inches apart, "It's your tree son, it's going to be yours." Cupped carefully in a damp paper towel, the seed of a silk floss tree, my favorite tree of all, (slightly surpassing even my love of Ents) lay in tiny glory. "Oooooooh, dad, it's in perfect shape! Where did you find it?!"
"You're going to plant this, take care of it, make sure its healthy, watch it grow into the spiked giant you love." I had already taken the small spade that had been slapping forgotten against my leg in the previous hours of climbing, and his words were almost lost upon my digging frenzy. "Careful now, it has to be the just the right distance away from the riverbank and depth down to avoid being washed away."
"I know, I know dad!" jagged breaths now, "I've read it a thousand times in the Encyclopedia," doggedly droning the facts on to my father as I dug. He sat on his haunches staring at me like it was the first time he had seen me, the joy I suppose only a father can feel when his son pretends to jump from apprentice to master in a matter of seconds. "It's done! It's finished!" chucking the spade aside roughly only to take the seed lightly in my hands, eyes lit up with a fervor that years in the future would unearth beneath the buzzing humming of an artist's needle. Gently I laid the seed down in the hole, soil like soft peat breathing a peaceful song to me as I patted the clods of dirt back over the seed. I threw my arms around my dad, dark imprints of dirty fingers on his back from my hands, and said, "I hope it grows to be as strong and tall as you dad. Or even Treebeard."
...it was four a.m. when the thunder of
equatorial rain began to pound
the aluminum siding of the church beside my building.
my eyes popped open
brother sound asleep below my top bunk fortress.
irises shifting lightning fast
from chocolate brown to hazel
as slivers of light do to my eyes after midnight darkness...
motionless,
a slow exhausted smile crept across
my face, a veiled snapshot only childhood excitement can attain.
snug and warm as freshly baked bread
i
tuned all my childish senses to
the nature surrounding my concrete city
pouring its heart out in white ribbons
and sound-slashes against my silk-floss seed
emptying its sky in howls that
shake our apartment's sliding living room windows...
and as i lay there,
cognizant of being sole spectator in this trophy display
of Caracas beauty
the dark corners of my mind began slowly to crawl into sunshine.
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