I have been sick for the last week, and so I've been using part of the time to re-create The Night Book after "The Great Fire of 06'."
For those that don't know, it seems that in a fit of sickness, and yes, madness, unfortunately there is no other word for it, I threw out a year's worth of poems, essays and personal notes. I wish I could say this was the first time that I have perpetrated such a catastrophe upon myself...I can't say how many notebooks I've lost over the years due to carelessness and/or stupidity such as this. I don't know whether I've lost them subconsciously, intentionally or simply out of some morbid curiousity. I lost my college thesis three times before I finished it, so let's just say I've drawn my own conclusions.
Fortunately for me, and if only for posterity's sake, I have a few paper copies of the orinal work, and some notebooks with the original ideas for the lost work, so, in my spare time, I've been trying to re-write these pages. I don't know if, in the end, it matters; I don't know if anyone cares except for me, but I do know that this is the first time I have ever attempted to re-claim that which has been lost, and, in doing so, to actually admit that I care enough about my need to express to make the effort to share these souvenirs of my residence on earth ("residencia en la tierra." - Neruda)
To be honest, I am as unsure of why I must write now as I was at the beginning of my journey some fifteen years ago. I wish I had a clever answer to this question, but as much as I have searched both in my selves and out in the world, I simply don't. I'd like to think, though, even if my tune is often not beautiful or decorative, but dark, shadowy and, yes, quite ugly, that these words have been an attempt at my own natural singing voice, like that of the Bluebirds, Robins and Cardinals I watched play in the branches of the trees in the backyard of my family home when I was child. I'd like to think that those birds taught me, if only just a little bit, how to sing naturally, and with the spirit of my own life.
And why do the birds sing?
Because it is the way they announce their life to the world,
because it is the way they become part of the world,
because it is the way they lure friends and seduce mates,
and, most importantly,
because they can.
2/1/07
