Heaven. I’m
in heaven.
And my
heart beats so
that I can
hardly speak
and I seem
to find the happiness I seek
when we're
out together
dancing
cheek to cheek.
—from "Cheek to Cheek" by Irving Berlin
Cielo
heaven,
sky, air
On a gray and
grafitti'd street
in a town
named for paradise,
three men in
fluorescent jackets
take a bread
and beer break.
With my
Spanish limited to nouns,
I ask the way
to Ascensor
Espiritu
Santo—the
funicular
named Holy
Spirit.
The men smile,
and one points
around the
corner.
I thank them,
walk five steps,
pay 100
pesos, and climb
into the
square box
that will
take me up the steep hill.
A man sits
inside on the thin bench,
holding a
plastic bag of fresh pan.
The funicular
fills with the smell
of his bread.
Another man enters,
then an old
woman, also carrying
a bag of
bread. Then one more woman
and a young
man. We are six.
We smell like
a panadaria.
We sit and
stand in silence.
I want to ask
how often these residents
ascend the
oily-railed tracks, but I don't have
the words
beyond bread and heaven.
The box
lurches and we launch up,
the three of
us on the bench shifting
into each
other in a bodily kiss of greeting—
the three
standing sway as if starting to dance.
Who extends
the invitation?
And to what
will we or they be invited?
We rise the
mountainside without using
our own
limbs. We have entered a body
beyond
ourselves. We have been invited
to a
communion of passage,
drinking
height as we rise up the rails
to a different
story. And though we don’t feel it,
we are being
transformed in these loud
seconds of
ascension, as gears sing
with
practiced harmony, as the memory
of an oven
sends the bread praying
to air, sky,
heaven.
The Sunday
before, I visited
a small
church, knowing only the couple
who invited me
but not their language.
All the small
congregation kissed
my gringa
cheek in greeting as they entered.
I waited for
the six guitars to begin their praise,
my face raw
with buenos dias.
Just before
the music began,
a woman with
a box of grape juice in her hand
and worry on
her face, asked me a question
I could not
unravel the words to.
Yet I knew
what she asked.
Si, I answered...to belief. To being
able
to eat the
bread and drink the blood.
Yes to
remembering a body beyond myself.
The funicular
stubs to a stop.
We passengers
look anywhere but into
each other’s
eyes. Maybe one minute passed,
yet all of
history has broken open among us.
The plastic
bread bags rustle, announcing
the end of
this brief service.
The door
rattles open. We arrive
to El
Museo de Cielo Abierto.
Choose your translation: The museum of
Open air?
Open sky? Open heaven?
Here, the
walls, the streets, the stairs
are covered
in murals dark and light,
dull and
bright. A sleeping dog
and stack of
pink trash bags watch
over the
entrance to this steep place,
filled with
every art—to this steep life,
the Museum of
Open Heavens.
Yes, I choose
heaven.
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