A COPY OF THE SEA’S WILL
1. I fill my shoes with sea-salt, walk along the shore and imagine that I've crossed the desert between our seas barefoot.I say: “My sea is sending to your sea the salt that's in my shoes” and then I step into the water, take off my shoes, and wait for the salt to dissolve. And the water's getting saltier. And the sea's getting saltier: my sea, not yours, for you and your sea are beyond the desert.
2. My shoes walk upon the waves, and the sky crosses the sea with them. Barefoot, I walk in the opposite direction and I think to myself: The desert, you, and I have come down from the sky (I've been told that the Earth was formed when the primordial sky hearkened to the commandment “Let there be.” Its particles whirled, it grew pensive and introspective. By the time it grasped the meaning of the words “Let there be,” its particles had already turned to dust.And sothe primordial earth came into existence.The heavenly particles went on hearkening to the commandment and even now they continue discovering its secret meanings: Be water. Be man. Be just the way you are, or maybe different . . .) All of us--the desert, you, and I-- have heard the command “Be.” The desert still remembers it, and wants us to recall it too, but ever since we separated, we have been accusing the desert of dividing us.
3. In fact, the desert is not a divider. It is a gatherer.The desert gathers sand.It has gathered these sands for years: the number of the sand grains is so great that should all the watches of the world turn into hourglasses, they would not contain them. And the years?The years, the rivers, the seas all help the desert. When the last hour of a sea draws near -- a sea in which innumerable rivers, centuries on end, have emptied their sands--the sea signs with its last drops two copies of its will -- the parched bottom, and the sky -- and leaves its sands to its only heir: the desert …
4. But how to cross the desert barefoot.Do I have to go through every single grain of sand? Or I could just touch one and feel all the others. And not because they are all the same: the truth is that I am just the same as them. Were it not so, I'd say “But how to cross the desert barefoot” and the desert will become even more impassable. (I pass over in silence …)
I set out through the desert and the grain of sand that once I'd called “the one and only” sends its reflections (through the heavenly particles) to someone who's aware of the fact that mirages don't lie: they reflect real objects: Grains of sand, grains with different names: oasis, sun, sunset over the desert, desert, she. But she and her sea: they are not beyond the desert. The sea dried up long ago: your sea, not mine, for my sea and I are grains of sand in the desert that was left after it.
5. I'll go through every single grain of sand. And not because I cannot find the one from the mirage. It is in my palm (you are in my palm), but because with every grain of sand I become more aware of its value, and I hear more clearly His word, and you hear more clearly His word.
Translation from Bulgarian:Michael Beard with Aziz Tash,and with Marta Simidchieva
