IT MAY BE TRUE
Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why no one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of hers.
But I have been losing any resemblance I may once have had to a writer as my economic circumstances have improved too much and my social relationships have widened to the point where I cannot write anything without offending someone I know, or unintentionally flattering one of my protectors and patrons, which means most people.
LIVING TOGETHER
How large unto the tiny fly
Must little things appear!—
A rosebud like a feather bed,
Its prickle like a spear;
A dewdrop like a looking-glass,
A hair like golden wire;
The smallest grain of mustard-seed
As fierce as coals of fire;
A loaf of bread, a lofty hill;
A wasp, a cruel leopard;
And specks of salt as bright to see
As lambkins to a shepherd.
Someone who always complains bitterly of the cross he has to bear (husband, wife, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, son, daughter, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law) is at the same time the cross of another person who bitterly complains of constantly having to bear the cross (daughter-in-law, son-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, stepdaughter, stepson, stepmother, stepfather, daughter, son, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, wife, husband) it has been his lot in life to carry; and so from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.
HEIGHT AND POETRY
The air is not so full of flies in
summer as it is at all times
of invisible devils.
Dwarves have a kind of sixth sense that allows them to recognize one other on sight.
Without standing on tiptoe, I easily measure five feet, three inches. I have been little since I was little. My mother and father were not tall either. When I realized, at the age of fifteen, that I was growing into a very short man, I began to do all the recommended exercises, which did not make me taller or stronger but did improve my appetite. And this was really a problem, because at that time we were very poor. Although I do not recall ever going hungry, it is more than likely that I was malnourished for long periods during my adolescence. Certain photographs (which do not always have to be blurred) prove it. I am saying this because it may be true that if I had eaten not more but better food back then, my height would be more respectable now. On my twenty-first birthday, and not a day before, I acknowledged defeat, gave up the exercises, and went out to vote.
Everyone knows that Central Americans, with a few irritating exceptions, do not generally enjoy great height. But regardless of what people say, it is not a racial problem. There are Indians in the Americas who surpass many Europeans in this regard. The fact of the matter is that poverty and the malnutrition that goes with it, combined with other, less spectacular factors, are the reason that my compatriots and I always invoke Napoleón, Madero, Lenin, and Chaplin when we need to prove, for whatever reason, that a man can be very short and still be courageous.
I am regularly the butt of jokes about my meager height, which almost amuses and consoles me because it gives me the feeling that with no effort on my part, and through my deficiency, I am making a contribution to the fleeting happiness of my disconsolate friends. And when I happen to think of it, I too make jokes at my own expense, which later come back to me as the fruits of somebody else’s creativity. What can you do? This has become so common a practice that even people who are shorter than I am manage to feel a little taller when they tell jokes about my height. One of the better witticisms calls me a representative of the Low Countries, and there are others along the same lines. I can see how people’s eyes shine when they believe I am hearing this for the first time! Then they go home and face the economic, artistic, or conjugal problems that overwhelm them, and feel somehow as if they have the courage to resolve them.
In any event, the malnutrition that leads to diminished stature also leads, no one knows why, to a fondness for writing verse. When I meet someone shorter than five feet, three inches, on the street or in a gathering, I recall Torres, Pope, or Alfonso Reyes, and I sense, or am almost certain, that I have encountered a poet. In the same way that true dwarves tend to be embittered, those of middling height are generally sweet-natured and given to melancholy and contemplation, and paradoxically enough, the muse seems more comfortable in abbreviated, even deformed bodies: the aforementioned Pope, for instance, as well as Leopardi. Whatever traces of a poet Bolívar possessed came from this. It may be true that the size of Cleopatra’s nose still has an influence on human history, but perhaps it is no less true that if Rubén Darío had reached a height of six feet, two inches, poetry in Spanish would never have gotten past Núñez de Arce. With the exception of Julio Cortázar, how can one comprehend a poet six feet, six inches tall? Consider Byron, who was lame, and Quevedo, who was knock-kneed; no, poetry does not hop, skip, or jump.
Now I’ve reached the point I wanted to make.
The other day I happened to see the guidelines for a Central American poetry festival that has been held in the city of Quezaltenango, Guatemala, since 1916. Along with the usual statement of requirements and prizes that one would expect in this kind of competition, these guidelines also set down, I believe for the first time in history, and I hope for the last, the condition that moved me to compose these lines, although I am still uncertain how it should be interpreted.
Clause E of the paragraph entitled “Submission of Work” reads as follows:
“Each work must be submitted with a separate sealed envelope that is labeled with the poet’s pen name and the title of the work, and contains a single sheet with the author’s name, signature, address, brief biography, and a photograph. Contestants are also requested to indicate on the reverse side their height in inches in order to facilitate arrangements for the ceremonial crowning of the Festival Queen and her court of honor.”
Their height in inches.
Once again I think of Pope and Leopardi, akin only in their having heard (with bitterness or with sadness) in the small hours following a night of revelry the couples laughing as they passed the rooms each shared with cruel insomnia.
CHRISTMAS. NEW YEAR’S. WHATEVER
Fearing flies is the reverse side of loving birds.