Poem
I know the place where magic comes from
and how to see it time to time
but I don’t know how to describe it
though I don’t want this power to be just mine
I know I see, I know I feel
but the words they kind of disappear
because magic cannot be contained
it changes form, it plays a game
So even if I tell you
the object I can see
it’s not the object I am looking at
it’s something deeper, something I feel
My heart I can’t put into yours
but you can come along with me
to find a spark that lights your own
by seeing me watch what I see
Prologue
I wonder.
Will I lose this feeling in trying to describe it?
I don’t know
I do know:
I don’t think a story can do justice to what happened inside of me.
It was a marvelous thing.
Decision:
- A feeling I don’t want to lose,
- a doing that might bring me to lose it
I’ll try to paint the picture anyway
and hope for the best.
Story
I was visiting the botanical gardens of Buenos Aires, strolling along a red rock path surrounded by palms, cactuses, and flowers, when I heard the quiet melody of a violinist. She sat up ahead in an open space and a group of people stood listening.
The friends I was with and I took notice. We intended to join the group of viewers [listeners] but as we came upon the intersection and found our spot, the violinist walked away. Part of the group dispersed almost immediately and small movements of confusion breezed through those who stayed.
As I looked around I saw three people making their way to the open space. They walked with their stuff doing almost the same thing as everyone else, and yet they stood out. Each came from a different path wearing a black outfit with a purple shirt and carrying a briefcase.
The show was not over.
As they moved, the mysterious figures didn’t say a word. They met in the center of the intersection, swung their briefcases in a wave, put them down and picked them up; and spun around as if looking for something.
I realized then that the music wasn’t gone, it simply changed form and was now radiating to the world from the rhythm of the dancers.
They were never completely in sync, yet the dancers carried a continuous sense of interconnection. Every movement was so normal, yet it was clear this was art.
It seemed like all that life encompassed was happening in front of me, like I was watching myself happen from an outside point of view. Soon everything outside the performance faded away and I was pulled certainly into the present.
In the following moments the dancers advanced away from the open area following in the footsteps of the violinist. They went slowly down the path, too slowly to say they walked away, with movements that never seized to flow.
Some people followed and others left, while still others stayed to ponder what they had seen. I was too captivated to move and elected to silently partake in this pondering. There, whispers of the words “I don’t understand what that was” circled in the air. I didn’t understand either but also, I did, and I do.
When I turned my head I became startled to see a woman standing close by, looking at me. She was nothing more than a curious soul, eager to speak english with a few American students but I saw from the corner of my eye a new crowd forming along the path the dancers had taken. Wanting to be back under their spell, I excused myself from the conversation and went to seek out the dance.
As I moved closer, an elder lady with white hair wearing a bright pink sweater shared a smile of understanding with me.
We watched the dancers where were now on a bench miming out the experience of waiting for a train and riding on a crowded one. Their bench stood in the middle of a path that fancied a canopy of leaves overhead. I saw then the violinist had taken a seat in the corner but she got up again. She left to a new open space and, this time, began playing.
The dancers looked around and shared brief words in trying to figure out where the music was coming from. They pointed this way, that way, and took steps in various directions before deciding on one to go in.
Together they made their way to the music and ended the performance by walking down separate roads away from the intersection.
The small crowd and I cheered in a round of applause. I watched as the artists bowed and began to speak. It was a brief explanation of the performance perhaps, but I have no way to be certain, I was too far away to hear.
Who were they?
What type of dance was that?
Why did they do a performance?
In New York, musicians and dancers in a park are always performing with the hope of making money. Being from New York, I found part of me waiting for the dancers to open their briefcases, walk around, and ask for donations. But they never did.
So what was the performance for, if not for money?
I continued to watch in the background as people came up to the performers, sharing hugs and kisses.
Did those people know the performers? Or was it just the Argentinian culture to hug and kiss everyone? Even those you don’t know? Even after a wave of the pandemic?
I wanted to go up to them too. I wanted to ask if the performance was choreographed, if they were a dance company with a website, an instagram, or a theater show. But I didn’t go. I tell myself I just couldn’t think of the words in spanish fast enough.
In reminiscence, the feeling I experienced from the dance was something I dreamed of creating for myself since when I was little.
I remember the day I was lying in the middle of an empty road by my cousins house looking up at the moon, the clouds, listening to the crickets. I was thinking to myself back then “I have so many thoughts that I can’t exist in the present. I don’t know how to, my insides are buzzing, but I’ll learn and one day I’ll know what it’s like.”
