The Name of the Rain

Tell me your name, says the clear, deep water of the Red Sea, the warm, oily water of the Dead Sea, the startling blue water of the Mediterranean Sea.

Tell me your name, says the wind to the high plateau of the Negev desert, the cloud to the granite cliffs of Wadi Rum, the olive tree to the rocky soil of the orchard.

Tell me your name, says the red sand dune to the gazelle, the honeybee, the hoopoe.

As the water cascades down her glowing skin, the young woman whispers into the rain, tell me your name.

What Can’t Be Seen

Akhmatova and Borges exit Café Tortoni in beautiful, haunted Buenos Aires after coffee, chocolate con churros, and chuckles at the ridiculous wax figures of Borges, Carlos Gardel & Alfonsina Storni. They stroll to the Museum of What Can’t be Seen, an edifice inspired by Escher: a labyrinth of corridors & staircases snaking up, down, in & around scores & scores of rooms, each painted Ghost White, each empty.

Blind Borges steers them through two galleries—Animal Dreams and Empathy— on the way to the high-ceilinged Gallery of the Great Russian Terror. Here,what can’t be seen are the millions of Gulag victims silenced by Stalin and given voice by Akhmatova:

If a gag should bind my tortured mouth,
through which a hundred million shout,
then let them pray for me, as I do pray
for them

Next stop is the Gallery of The Argentine Disappeared, where what can’t be seen are the 30,000+ who were ‘disappeared’ in the 1970’s Dirty War. Akhmatova can’t publish until Stalin’s death for fear of reprisals. Borges, though, laser-focuses on his prose being “for the world” yet claims to not read newspapers; he also seems to have missed the sounds from the torture center near his home and only speaks out after the dictatorship fell.

Silence.

Stillness.

Finally, the Gallery of Negative Capability, where what can’t be seen are (channeling Keats) the uncertainties, mysteries & doubts that writers embrace. Alone of all the rooms, it has a white bench, and they sit.

After a time, each begins mumbling, muttering, murmuring.