A long, long time ago

i woke up on the bank of a river

i got up trying not to fall

stumbling

i looked for the nearest tree

two parts of me clung to that log, holding me.

A sound came from within me at that contact

accompanying me

i was body

When everything stopped moving around me

i knew i could be like that tree

so i stayed in front of it

until a tickle made me know that i could move those two limbs in contact with the ground

as i raised them i let out a sound

that trilled with the wind

to be voice and laughter

i knew that by moving I could leap to reach the lower branches of that tree

i plucked the yellow fruits bringing them towards me to smell them,

to taste them, to satiate something i felt i was missing,

sweet taste stopping the slight tremor of hunger

i was food 

i could touch the leaves, feel their smoothness or roughness,

i listened to the torrential sound of the water in its trunk, in its branches, in every leaf

as well as in my trunk, in my blue, green and red ramifications that i heard flowing in me

i was consciousness of stream and dew.

Night came and i felt cold

no matter how many leaves i managed to cover myself, 

no matter how many trees i hugged for warmth,

for more sustenance that conciliated the inner trembling,

no matter how much fire i created to protect myself

no matter how many songs and dances that lulled me to sleep and pleased me

nothing succeeded in sheltering me

i woke up lying on the ground

in the midst of ashes, leaves and tubers

buzzing were a pair of dragonflies

as old as me,

with precise movements

undulating, careful

they were threading with their fine needles

fluttering up and down

creating latent sutures

closing a line drawn on my belly

finishing its stitching with a button

for navel.

Protected from the inside out

and backwards

woven double face

on the face of the earth.

And then I was a thought

with this skin that inhabits me,

feeling what I think

and touching what I feel.