My Conversation with Gabriel Garcia Marquez
If God hadn’t rested on Sunday, He would have had time to finish the world.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Señor Garcia Marquez, now that you are eighty-five and I
seventy-one, it would be my honor to sit
with you in Arcataca at a small table on a dusty street with
a glass of aguardiente.
By our second glass I would slide across the table what you
wrote, and ask you what it is that you wished God had
finished on the seventh day.
Not the intoxicating night perfume of jasmine that filled
your soul with courage as you made your way to the window
of that young beauty with which you were smitten.
Not the white doves scattering at your feet as you crossed
her courtyard.
Could Columbia’s Condor wings have been wider?
Could the emeralds in your mountains be greener?
Could the parrots in your lemon tree be more brightly colored?
Can the aromas drifting from the cocina be more exotic
as the day’s light fades and rustling palms play long shadows
on the earth?
So, as our bottle empties, Señor, what is not finished? Ah! Mankind you say!
Not by the seventh, the tenth, nor the one-hundredth day,
Señor Garcia Marquez. You and I both know that.
“Señora, another bottle, por favor.”
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