From PEN BOLIVIA MAGAZINE Number 6 year 8 (2003: 32-34)

PREMATURE MUSINGS ON CLOUDY AFTERNOONS
Cochabamba, 2003

By Rossemarie Caballero

2902
I'm close to the mountain. The high mountain that caresses the skin of the clouds. Over there in the distance, majestic (and lonely) rises the top with its head of ice and its heart, as I feel, ardent.
Libra... Libra is a sonorous word, liberate me from the fire, liberate the dreams, those of resting my head on your breast and feeling your perfume, my hand posed on your spirit.

0103
I'm arriving to the mountain. Through the glass I perceive a shadow. It could be your silhouette. I believe it is your silhouette, it´s unmistakable; your magnificent presence can´t go unnoticed. I saw you and I went mad with joy inside myself. It is a victory to wait till you look at me, transcendental and unbreakable.
That you look through the mountain at the dew that falls down at the dusty wayside constitutes now the unheard of summum of poetry.

0103
A wonderful day, majestic, glorious; the day greeted me with its blessed hand and I, like a white flag, took flight over the impossible meadow of green leaves.

0203
A warm morning. A sailing trip over the Amazon, close to the mountain? The fountain of unconmorable waters heard a promise invented by the air, invented on account of the rowing toward the river, on account of an earthen pot that went to the well so often... that... it broke.

0203
In the evening his eyes rested for a vanishing moment on my shadow and I trembled. Like a fragile autumn leaf, the breeze of his looks disturbed me. I felt a deep and fathomless hole under my feet, the earth fell over me and covered the light of my soul to the point of confusing my steps. I fled... Under the wide blue sky of that afternoon I fled to take refuge under the sheltering cloak of a home.

0303

It rains, millions of illusions are rainingaround me. The White flowers are falling, transparent flowers like cristal-clear mother-of-pearl droplets on my rose skin. The ether is caressing silk and your springtime mouth waits on the top, on a bed of soft and warm clouds, there I will be and drink your sap with the thirst that is felt by the hot  desert sand and I will admire your utterly beautiful body and will touch the divine hem of your spirit. How beautiful you are, a beauty as explained in encyclopedia gives, that is you!

This will be four long days with their nights… waiting for the sacred instant.

0803
The color I chose to share my ardent desire is light blue. Celestial as the resplendent sky, like the clear splendor of my emotions at daybreak; light blue, dark blue, like the waters of the limitless ocean.
It rains. It pours torrentially. As soon as his mouth showed a pale smile, I wanted to die, but I restrained myself when remembering his cordial greeting in the morning, he stretched out his strong hand, and something indescribable pressed on my stomach. I was overhelmed by the desire to die, to commit suicide, because of the incredible confusion of its meaning …  but I withheld myself.
Maybe I´ll have to get accustomed to repress my thirst, at least until Friday. Maybe then I will manage to respond to the enigma of the Sphinx and thousands of questions will find their answers, at eight thirty or nine o´clock Sharp. Maybe there and at then, at this inexorable but belated hour... two more days… next to the sand clock.

0903
Today is Thursday. This Thursday mentioned by Vallejo... I will die in Paris under the rain... Maybe a Thursday like today, in autumn...
A black shirt covers your figure and, paradoxically, instead of announcing grief it announces me joy. The joy of looking at you, of contemplating your smile and sprinkling luminosity in your eyes; in your teeth, white like the sublime ear of corn summer produces. The fruit of your mouth, the grain that reflects the light of your soul brought me back a puff of green colors that started to vanish in the perpetuity of silence.

1003
Are you tired? Sleep, angel´s heart, you are in your white cloud. Do my eyes make you sleepy, or maybe my skin? Sleep, for tomorrow when you wake up, you will remember the rain that moistened your thirst and I won´t be there, cause today can be lived only once, and tomorrow will not be for me.
Do you really believe that living this moment is the most beautiful there is? Sleep and dream and in your dream take me with you. Fill me with flowers and adore my body, cause my soul is drying out and doesn´t have any more of the water I had yesterday, and if you do not drink today that what´s still there you will never again feel what can only be experienced in dreams.

1103

A woman waits at the edge of the cliff. She thinks of Storni and remembers the nurse’s lamp. A woman waits… at the cliff. The waves of the fierce sea cry for a boat that does not arrive. A sad Little flag shows on the horizon. A man waits. The boat has left, setting sail for silence, in the infinity another man waits for its return.

Two white men wait each for a woman who does not arrive. The ocean looks empty, feels empty, the sails draw unknown memories, oblivion, to the wind. Penelope cries, autumn has died on the beach.

The end

Rossemarie Caballero was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1961. She a novelist and poet. Nowadays she´s editing two book collections: World Young Writers and World Women Writers from Bolivia to the Overseas.