Guabasa

This was before all had a name. This was before the earth was divided into continents. This was before steeples were built upon the sun. This was before the streets were colonized by the galleons of cocaine and legislation. Capital by another name: this was before the birth of the machine. Of the wheel. And what is life to a mammal if we cannot harness fire? This was before sulfur and kerosene flowed within me. This was the hand of the farmers and miners thrown into a ditch of severed stories. For the price of what? Can you give a name to fire and expect it to listen to you? This was before we believed that we could conquer nature. A forest is a collection of cathedrals. The animals, the rain, the silences in between: you cannot trace any meridians within this geography and not know where the world began. This was before we convinced the clergies that it began with us. Or perhaps when the clergies convinced us. Look at this horizon. Look at it once your ancestors become distracted. Do you see it? This was before that entire sky was littered with the bullets of the firing squads. Do you see the distortions, glances, the indifference of the clouds? We burned the veil off of the cadaver. This was before we had shroud the eyes of a ravaged skull. Somewhere across my voice I found a skeleton. Somewhere across your eyes I spotted a nest of condors. This was before we were predestined for decomposition and decay. Now I wake up everyday and see a pack of jackals storming through the barrios. I’m more afraid of the morning than the sunset because, with the shadows, I am already familiar— the light that I see: does it come from the sun or does it come from the flame? The scientists, the archaeologists, the entrepreneurs, and the ministers… I ask if they believe that a problem of man can be solved by the products of man. I can speak seven separate dialects of cog and rotor, from the linguistic branch of the engine. I am a descendant of the machine and machete. Am I closer to property than prophecy? This was before electricity was introduced into the sprockets. This was before I wore the necklace of atomic bombs. I can’t look into the windows of the schools because all I hear is the sound of nuclear fission learning to speak the seven separate dialects. Every sunday, the forests remain empty; but somewhere upon the island a profit is being made. The question I ask my child is: by who? The question I ask the elders: for who? Clocks shatter and wines ferment by the time we agree on answers. This was before the railroads. This was before the crucifixions. This was before God agreed on salvations based solely on faith.

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Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, raised in Essex County, New Jersey, Poetry Reader for Muzzle Magazine, and current recipient of the Atlantis Award for Poetry, Julio Cesar Villegas is the writer that your abuelos warned you about. His scriptures can be found or are forthcoming in Rigorous Mag, Subprimal Poetry Art, Grist, Into The Void, Waccamaw, Bare Fiction, as well as the inescapable mouth of the abyss. Puerto Rico Se Levanta.