Donkeys Ruggero & Filumena
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Two donkeys walking along. Walking in line. With their lowered eyes looking at the ground. Two white muzzles, on a goat’s hill, grazing their day on the milky field. With silver coats and golden ears, “wise animals!” whispers the breeze.
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(I now see two donkeys walking in line towards me. “Come closer! Stay with me!” say my waving branches desperately.)
The donkeys lift their head. Look at what lays ahead. And for an instant, they stop walking. Their ears have heard something moving. Do they wonder? What can they see?
- “Is this a dreamer turning into a tree?”
(Four rounded eyes looking my way. If they could speak, what would they say? An ear pricked up. Is it punctuation? Whatever the eyes said, the ear made it question!)
They stand a while in disbelief. Staring, amused, at the motif.
- “Another one lost in translation!”
- “This one has tried to reach the depth. Literal creature!”
(Two white muzzles pointing my way. If they would speak, what would they say? Nothing but truth. Truth. But nothing. They keep silent. Sort of saying.)
- “It is the only way to keep the truth safe.”
The two donkeys resume their walk. The dream has blurred. Is this a talk? Talking in circle around the dreamer. Walking words, orbiting matter.
- “The intention might be right but your soil is another, dreamer! We can see you have tried to follow Ad3aba. But he is the king and you are... well, just a dreamer. You were meant to follow the seasons! But you went straight for the winter trunk, didn’t you? Don’t you know verticality is a tree’s privilege? Now you are just a dreamer stuck in the ground with growing roots and barky arms.”
(Eight legs walking in circle around me. I feel they are talking, could that be? While I am here, planted in the ground like a tree. Is this some kind of irony?)
They have achieved the first circle. Start a second, getting closer to the dreamer. Of their spiral, he is the center.
- “Look at him! He has even grown bigger ears! Still pretty small though for our standards. And if his mouth can taste better than his ears can hear, bittersweet must be the taste in front of our piercing sp-ears. ”
(Four long ears listening my way. No doubt, irony is out to play! Like words made flesh. “Listen!” they say. “Hear us!” I hear what they don’t say.)
- “ You can go deeper into the ground growing roots or deeper into sound growing ears. Depth(2), depth(3) will stay empty if you keep expanding outward you see.”
- “ Can’t you see? Every heart has an ear in its heart. Can’t you hear? The ear wrapped in Hikmat’s movement. A hailing H, a T toward. Follow the letters. From ear to hear. From hear to heart.”
Carrying along their spiral, they are starting the third circle. Suddenly assailed by a low rumble. And as they approach the dreamer’s shore, the rumble turns into a roar. Their ears are trembling. Staggering noise. Their pace is slowing. It seems that their bodies have met resistance.
- “Words are protecting their citadel. The dreamer is theirs. On him they have cast a spell. Spell them out! Strip them naked! Wring their body, and their letters they will spill.”
(Their tails are brushing against my branches. I feel their warmth and their silence. But as my hand tries to stroke them, their bodies dissolve and leave my dreaming land. Could my words have shaped their body to fool me? So many, so noisy! They have gathered to be. Could they have broken the wall of matter, only to prove, no matter what, that my truth is theirs and my soul forever in their snare?)
The donkeys have reached the spiral's center. They are standing next to the dreamer.
- “ You can not touch what you have not named. A wild animal always needs to be tamed.”
- “Listen carefully, dreamer! These two names we will whisper to you are our silver coats. Very precious! They gave us shape. Their letters are our cape. Do not mention them in vain! Every breath passing through them wears them away. They will decay. Like riverbanks, they will erode. Only silence, without tarnishing, grows old. Let the G row toward the old. Your soul will reach its final G-old.”
( I can see the letters but my voice has no eyes. But my eyes, a good ear. *Ruggero sounds soft and clear.)
- “The power of this name is endless. But, in this dream, you are not, so be wise! Do not venture, follow our path. *Spiralion has no impasse!
- “ You will need a guide for this journey. The second name is on its way. Be aware ! It is a shape-shifter, to its letters you must surrender.
(I can feel something in my hand. *Filumena, weaving her thread. I hold tight and my legs are pulled out of my head.)
- “ Now start walking! And do not stop until you reach the garden you are looking for.”
*Ruggero
Ruggero is a word of great lineage. Son of the Northern sea, Mother of the Word to be. Each of its letters has a wave sculptured in its curve. Only the big “R”, first figure, with its straight line, is an arrow towards the sky.
North
A wind met a white pearl. It blew away its P and around it began to whirl. Freeing its sound, the blowing wind made the pearl blush and its head spin.
Spinning, spinning, the pearl melted into rain. And with the S of sound, swirling, enraptured by the swain. The wind fell for the tunes’ beauty. Enchanted by its fluidity.
It gave up its steam. Embraced the stream. Love is a chain of a sweet kind. Freedom is lost but never mind! But falling in love starts with a fall. The counterpart of heavens ball.
Falling, falling, hitting the ground. Into an ear, the rain poured its drops of sound. An endless flow inside a heart. A sea was born. A floating H, a heart is but an earth on a mourning morn.
Birds know that the sea is a song. And so they sing along. Creatures of the rising waves, a flying sea, the ascending notes on a stave. A melody in the daylight, farewell sweet wings of the night.
Inside the sea the melody, turned into silent memory. Fishes are birds that have followed the falling waves. Diving into the water, swimming wind, in the abode of a dear lover, swinging fins.
The wind has wrapped his wings around the melted pearl, softly spelling the solid world. As singing waters silenced their cords and carried, their foam, their letters, to another density.
East
Letters give up their fluid state. To become a word they aggregate. A shore is born! Ruggero is an island. Truth be told, aren’t they all? Words! Islands in the silence of our soul.
Piercing the empty space, Ruggero is a rugged land, a rocky place. Seven letters kept together. Mnemosyne bound them to matter.
As they unravel, they build their frame, the morphology of their name. Sketching the outlines of their world, its mantle. Three syllables, a triangle.
From the edge of their sound, from the curves of their sign, letters will soon draw their lines. Shaping their land with their plaster, slowly fine-tuning its character.
For now, Ruggero is bruised and sore. His first R is a harrowing roar. It is a pathfinder. Unwittingly! As he is mourning his mother the sea.
Languishing rumbles. His broken surface he crumbles. Designing a sandy coastline. A brown sea for his mother to soothe his whine. To feel the rolling waves he has inside.
And as the Sea hears Ruggero’s tears, she forces her way into the land, forging a bay to rock his sand. To sweep away his widespread gloom. As time has come for a new word to bloom.
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South
The U is more of a conqueror. Carrying Ruggero away from the water. The R resists, the U persists. That is how dunes come to exist.
The U unrolls the rolling R compelled to leave his sandy shore. Blowing through the vowel’s wings, the R, following its rising cry, takes off in an attempt to reach the sky.
The first two letters climbing up the air, dress it with Ruggero’s despair. Along the way, they mould high cliffs, a landscape tuned to Ruggero’s grief.
Wrapped in sorrow, sowing its seeds that soon will grow, the land gives birth to an old soul, its earth. From the letters’ mineral, vegetation enters the ball.
With this new soul, the land can feel. And its emotions cannot conceal. As it trembles, the double G, shaking the ground, brings the heartfelt cry to its apogee.
Suddenly, the land soars into the sky. Mountains arise ! Ruggero, a mountainous word. Growing in height as he hurls.
So high as to make him believe - a newborn word can be naive, that he could reach the primordial wind. But in this word, to his letters, he is forever pinned.
West
Ruggero is looking up to the sky. Could his double G be the two wings he needs to fly? Ignoring that the G is bound to the earthy ground, he stumbles on his E. Lord, how far is the sea !
Ruggero rolls down his western slope. His limping Epsilon has burried his sea-cret hope. The vowel drags him into the R’s spinning wheel where Ruggero is slowly drowning.
With all the strenght of his sound, he tries in vain to hold his ground. But bound to fail, the ground follows him and drowns as well.
The drilling R has carved a volcano, spitting the fire tears of Ruggero. Trapped in the straight line of his name, towards the Sea he throws his flames.
His final O makes him hopeful as it has no cliff from which to fall. Where it has started the O always returns.Will it lead Ruggero back to the sea for which he yearns?
No I to see, no pen to penetrate, the inside of the O, its kingdom, its estate. Ruggero will wait and implore the final O to open its door! For his letters to escape, for him to leave his wordy shape.
Who knows what Ruggero might be, outside of letters, in the depth of the sea. With words, this question will never be answered. And on this side of the world letters will always be.