tendermost hemisphere

tradução de Cecília Fischer Dias

In the southern hemisphere, a group of people will gather, and I won’t be there. In the northern hemisphere, before this gathering, I will attend a funeral. In one hemisphere, a gathering of writers in the heart of tenderness. In the other hemisphere, the final farewell of a man I never got to meet in person. The man’s name was Bert, and he had turned 60 last December — his last December, his last birthday. Bert is (was) the father of an only son, Stan, who was born in the northern hemisphere and eventually fell in love with a young woman who was born in the southern hemisphere, my daughter Flora. Stan and Flora were there for Bert on his nine final months, learning to live through the days knowing that death was coming — they didn’t know exactly when, but they could feel it getting closer. They were with each other, the two of them. They were with Bert on his final months, in this farewell that lasted as long as carrying a child. It is curious that weaving death can last the same as weaving life, just like winter lasts as long as the summer. During the winter, the trees in the northern hemisphere are naked. Their nakedness surprises me, maybe because in the southern hemisphere the lack of leaves and their gray color remind me of death. The birds in the northern hemisphere also surprise me — very different from the ones in the southern hemisphere. Today is the day after the funeral, and, moved by it, I cry admiring the blue sky as I listen to the birds, their lively talks in the cold beginning of spring. The trees nakedness is inhospitable, leaving the birds to starve, but people hang food on the dry branches for them to resist through the season. Not to resist is the same as dying, allowing the body to rest barren of life. One time, in the southern hemisphere, I saw a little passer — quiet, scared — between the curb and the asphalt of a busy street. I was in a hurry — as I, unfortunately, usually am — but I noticed it was dying, and I couldn’t leave it there amidst the unbearable noise of cars, the tires barely missing that small body, its existence ignored by it all. I took it in my hands. In front of us was the garden of a building; I laid the bird on the ground, under a bush of azaleas, where I thought it could part with dignity. Another time, as I came out of the ocean, I saw a tiny fish that alternated between swimming and floating, its eyes wide in agitation, its gills moving intensely, and once again I realized that death was coming. I took the fish in my hands, making a small pool for it — I believed that could give it some comfort. This time I was not in a hurry, so I waited and waited until life left its body — there, in the ocean, its home. And there were other times, with a hamster, a snake, my cats; I faced their last look, their pleading look — I didn’t know if they wanted life or death, but I knew they wanted the end. There is something sublime in these farewell looks I didn’t turn away from, understanding that they invited me to stay, to keep them company with all of me. When their eyes are left with no life, when look is only a noun, not a verb. When life leaves their body, I can witness this farewell. Life leaves the body, and in this passing is the most sublime state of being: no longer being. Just as the first coming into being — when eyes, lungs, and mouth open — is sublime. The first time announces the last. From the backyard, I see a mother duck, determined and patient, hatching four eggs on the nest that floats on the canal, while the trees that seemed dead start to show some green, exuberant, although small. The naked almond tree expects flowers, full of pink buds, and the cat enjoys some sunlight in its favorite spot among the bushes. I hear the silence. I hear wings opening. Together, we fly away.