Starry night

I’d already learned that water and freedom were overlapping. As I knew that, among so much that happiness is, there is the sun. That no one exists who will not be breathless, who will not be able to imagine a different future when that orange, pink sphere disappears in such an incredible act; the largest star in the universe.

I really don’t know if it’s the largest star, but I like this certainty of saying so. I do know that in each sunset, in the scene of any calm sea, a love reappears, an idea, the radiography of something that nourishes life.

I thought of this, reading the testimony of Oscar López Rivera in his book "Between Torture and Resistance": "In Marion I would go out to the yard once a week and from there I would see trees, animals, birds. I would hear the noise of the train and the song of the cicadas. I would run on the ground and smell it. I could grab grass in my hands and let butterflies surround me. But here, there’s none of that.”

In another fragment, the Puerto Rican political prisoner who today, Three Kings Day, turns 69 years old, 30 of those years behind bars, says, “Something I can say is that I only see the shadow of the shadow, but not the object. That’s how it’s been for five years, without seeing a starry sky or the darkness of night...”.

You and I knew this. That a new year would begin and that violence would continue so atrociously. That innocents would fall, and those in government would be so hypocritical and passive, like last year. We new that we would continue living in this phony environment. Breathing deeply, swallowing hard, digging in, what else to do. Looking for happiness elsewhere. You and I know that there isn’t much we can do so that people in the street don’t shoot each other to death. That it’s really not in our hands.

What is in our hands is to demand the release of Oscar López Rivera. You and I can be determined that they hear us; that 2012 won’t end without Oscar having his starry night, a minute after his first sunset in 30 years.

(Traducción de Jan Susler)