A trip to Comala (2009)

Based on the novel Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo

Ode to Juan Preciado (2009)

Many paths lead to Comala.
The stranger walks this one alone.

The sand is gritty on his teeth, the roads are long
and the words of the dead mother echo,
echo with every plodding step
as a parched wind sweeps the empty valley.

He carries nothing but a name, a mystery,
a drop of water in a rusty canteen.
Distant, half-forgotten words
paint memories of green
over the desolate path,
then fade into the present gray
of ashes and fog.

No moon shines on Comala.
The air thickens with heat and flies,
slowly choking the land
suffocating the wanderer
who shrinks inside and shudders:
'I am alone.'

But wait! A kerosene lamp
betrays life. A woman, old as time
steps out
beckons on the threshold
bids the traveler enter:
'I've been expecting you.'

She closes the termite-bitten door,
floorboards creaking as they pass,
as she speaks of his mother,
now seven days dead:

'She told me today that you would come.'

The stranger doesn't mind the words,
doesn't mind how strange they sound
in that dim, dank hovel of a house,
only wants to grab that life
and keep it
to color the abysmal town
with the stark red of her lips,
no matter that her face is ghastly pale.

'I am so thirsty,' he says,
feeling himself pale too,
and weak.

She hands him a bottle,
cobweb-covered,
that once held wine
ripe-red as her lipstick.

He tilts it to his mouth
finds it dry, and then he knows
the truth, heavy as lead:
there is no more.
No more wine.
No more woman.
No more town.
No more father he came to seek.

He came to find, and lost himself,
the deadest dead man
in this town of ghosts,
lost himself among
a thousand murmurs.

The stranger surrenders
and, swallowed by the earth,
remembers:

Many paths lead to Comala
But none will ever lead away.