The Road is Hidden

We conclude our summer series on poets, cars, and driving, with a couple of my own recollections of driving with a poet, my friend, Juan Saez Burgos (1942-2006).

The first is from Rhode Island. Juan and Diana had moved into the apartment in Providence that my girlfriend and I were moving out of, and we moved into the one above and became friends. Driving to a TGI Fridays in Warwick, which the then not-quite-two-year-old Juan Camillo adored (and where he was adored). Juan driving, his son sitting on Susan's lap, playing with her earrings. "Earrings are keys," he said. This was recognized as one of his first sentences. Poetic, no?

Francisco Oller, Casa-Finca del Guaraguao (1833)

De una isla a otro... A few years later, visiting Juan and Diana in Puerto Rico after they had moved back, after many years in the States. A long day driving out along the beaches west of San Juan, and then up into the mountains. Narrow roads hair-pinning above coffee plantations. Little Juan sitting in my lap this time as his father drove. Suddenly, the boy became uncharacteristically quiet and still. His father noticed but it was too late. Juan threw up all over my shorts and much of the front seat. Juan Senior pulled over and jumped out of the car. Some local boys on bikes watched us with interest. "Agua? Agua? Donde agua?!" Juan shouted. They pointed to some tall grass. Milagro! A faucet was hidden there, and we washed off Juan, the car seat, and me as best we could. Little Juan felt much better and I had my bathing suit, still damp from the beach, to change into for our dinner at a little mountainside restaurant.

Here is the title poem from Juan's collected poems, La palabra y su magos: "The Word and Its Magicians":

The person is hidden from the road.
The road looks for him

but doesn't take him in.

The road is hidden from the person.
He looks for it

but doesn't take it in.

The person and the road are hidden.
They look for them

but don't take them in.

La palabra y sus magos

Se esconde la persona del camino.
El camino la busca,

no se asoma.

Se le esconde el camino a la persona.
La persona lo busca,

no se asoma.

Se esconden la persona y el camino.
Se buscan el camino y la persona,

no se asoman.

(Thanks to L. for the translation.)