What word remains that has not already dissolved into the wind? I search the air for a new enchantment, a spell woven from silk and silence, yet my hands find only the hem of the unknown. I am no master of rhythms, nor a keeper of ancient keys; I am merely a child, small and breathless, tracing the golden veins of a light that always seems to retreat.

I walk through the mist, one more shadow among the thousands, a brief ripple in a vast and indifferent sea. We are the lost, wandering the corridors of an endless afternoon.

And what can the voice offer to the weight of sorrow? The earth is heavy with the quietude of brothers and sisters, fallen into the deep sleep of others’ making. So much life extinguished by the cold, blunt edge of human stupidity, a senseless storm that breaks the lilies and hushes the song. We are left only with the echo of their names and the fragility of our own wandering hearts.

©️ Beatriz Esmer