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In the beginning, there was a word.
In the beginning, there was a word.
“duende”.
It meant to me a state of unexpected bliss,
a gift of unseen origin,
a dreamless, sun-filled sleep.
I would wrap my mouth around it in the day,
while surrounded by strangers,
while waiting for change,
thinking
of you.
“duende, duende, duende”, I would say,
imagining a Castilian lisp to impart the proper
taste
of sea salt
and lemon rind.
I grew my hair out for you,
I took you where you had not yet been,
and I stood in front of mirrors,
wondering
if what I wore
would affect the outcome.
When I tried to find the definition
the way we all do these days,
without the smell of yellowed paper
or the crisp sound of information turning under fingertip,
flip, and turn,
flip, and turn,
creases of old ink and perhaps out-dated impressions,
the search
came up
null.
The only thing that I could find was surrounded by goblins,
and a trail to the Spanish arts.
Even the internet was confused.
My word was “hard to define”.
My word was lost,
intangible,
faded through the ether.
“In fact, tener duende can only be loosely translated as having soul.”
