The book of debts
I blame the first chrysanthemum she gave me in a whisper: I should have given you this flower a long time ago. And I blame the stars all around, smelling of freshly-cut grass, the first greens sprouting on the branches. Yes, Spring is to be blamed, breaking through the heavy blanket of cold, screaming with a flock of swallows. I blame stars and birds, and I blame their singing. I blame the first chrysanthemum given to me, and Lispector’s words scribbled in a note — yes, it’s true, the chrysanthemum speaks through colour and dishevelment. It is to be blamed. And the trees, raving wild with blossom, and the dandelions everywhere, spreading over in sidewalks’ cracks. Yes, the sky is to be blamed, the sky that she has made her own, her particular ocean, the clouds being its waves, this vast wild unreachable thing. I blame the sky, and the stars, and the tree in my dream, trimmed to its core and heart. In my dream, Spring had been curtailed by a thin layer of snow, a blank page falling over everything. In my dream, I looked for blossom, but only found a naked tree, this wild exposed thing. I blame this tree I dreamt, this wild beast, trimmed and frosted and almost translucid; and I blame the first chrysanthemum she gave me with a note written in a hurry: yes, it is a flower that impetuously controls its own savagery. In my dream, I sit facing the tree in its bareness, and I wait for the branches to grow again. It’s snowing for a long time, or it has just started snowing, or it will snow soon. I sit and wait, but could love wait? Could love last while waiting? The branches will take their time. Wild things, against all odds, are very patient. I blame them, and the little holes they left behind, a tree full of absent places. And I blame my dream, where I sit and wait. I am facing the tree, and suddenly it starts to grow again, little by little. I blame the first chrysanthemum she gave me, and her calligraphy on a piece of paper, both wild and dishevelled: yes, the chrysanthemum is of profound joy. I blame the branches growing back in my dream, while I sit and face through the frost, and the leaves, and finally through the blossom: in my dream, I see the stars, embroidered carved sewed and unreachable, on the surface of a vast wild sea. In my dream, the swallows are piercing through a starry sea as through a pane of frost, and the growing branches are about to be engulfed by the sky: a vast wild sea, tender and furious and as silent as me. I blame the sky in my dream, and the silence broken through by swallows, and the first chrysanthemum: I should have given you this a long time ago. Rip its petals out, and blow.
Originally published at theblankgarden.com on June 29, 2018.
