On the distance

Real de Catorce, May 2016

I ride at dawn passing by the peaks which mark the limit of the town, leaving behind our group, leaving behind the familiar into the dusty planes that extend beyond the horizon. The air still fresh from the dying night hits my face as I ride knowing I am going nowhere and my horse gallops at a firm phase through the bushes.

I pass by the old railroad station, far into the plateau, far away from any road. The sun rising up in the clear sky, warming the soil and with it the sounds of the animals hidden in the nature, singing like a coordinated orchestra with a feral touch. There were no signs or men, just the face of nature and its creations dwelling in the bushes and through holes along the soil.

I ride along the high mesas and the ground resounds under my horse hooves and he gallops faster as I slightly press him with my boots. Our blood heated as the sun warmed our skin and our mouths dry up and our breath becomes heavy. I turn into the old hill road and he goes anxious as if he knows our time is coming to an end and I know that what I was seeking to discover in the desert was a think that I’d always knew; that our shadows would never be one again and that my future was beyond the distance under a different sky, in which we will not ride again.

I ride through the old mining compound, silent and abandoned through the times of the revolution and I take down the mounting of my horse and we both drink water from the small pound under the ruins of the old mill. I look at his big brown eyes that seem calm, yet he looks at me quietly as if he know my heart was full with sadness. We stand there without making much sound as the cold breeze of the nearby mountains cools down our bodies and I prepare the mount again to head up into the old road.

We encounter cowboys and their cattle, jeeps full of tourists ready to venture in search of peyote, and later on I hear the bell of the church marking the entrance back into civilization and I ride back to the old hacienda, where my friends and family are having breakfast. I leave the horse at the stable with the other horses and he looks back at me from the fence quiet and still as if he knew we will not ride again, as if he was saying goodbye.

——

Stockholm , July 2018

Goodbye old friend.