Guide  

When you’re a child in a remote place,

where owls wish you good night,

where the grown-ups leave with a rifle

or with a rope, where every vehicle draws

a bead on the pedestrian, where eloquence

has wine-godmothers, where you get lost

in the murmur of a stream, in the barking of dogs,

where other than the mail-carrier and the baker

only death knocks at the door, you rely on fear.

In the middle of a clearing, where heat

collects, it fills your windpipe with the resinous

silence, so that with an open mouth you race home.