The little airplanes of the heart with their brave little propellers What can they do against the winds of darkness even as butterflies are beaten back by hurricanes yet do not die They lie in wait wherever they can hide and hang their fine wings folded and when the killer-wind dies they flutter forth again into the new-blown light live as leaves

It's not that she walked away Her world got smaller All the usual places The same destinations Only something's changed.

It's not that she wasn't rewarded With pomegranate afternoons And Mingus, Chet Baker and chess It's not stampede and fortune Of prim affectations She's off on a riot(?) And she knows now Is greater than the whole Of the past Is greater and now she knows

She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be. She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be.

It's not that the transparency Of her earlier incarnations Now looked back on Were rich and loaded With beautiful vulnerability But now she knows Now is greater And she knows that.

She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be.

Now is greater Now is greater And she knows that.

She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be. She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be.

She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be. She just wants to be somewhere She just wants to be.

It's not like if angels Could truly look down Stir up the trappings A light on the ground Remind us of what, when, why or who The how's up to us Me and you And now is greater than the whole Of the past Is greater and now she knows that.

Now she knows.

Their hands were tied or handcuffed, yet their fingers danced, flew, drew words. The prisoners were hooded, but leaning back, they could see a bit, just a bit, down below. Although it was forbidden to speak, they spoke with their hands. Pinio Ungerfeld taught me the finger alphabet, which he had learned in prison without a teacher:

"Some of us had bad handwriting," he told me. "Others were masters of calligraphy."

The Uruguayan dictatorship wanted everyone to stand alone, everyone to be no one: in prison and barracks, and throughout the country, communication was a crime.

Some prisoners spent more than ten years buried in solitary cells the size of coffins, hearing nothing but clanging bars or footsteps in the corridors. Fernandez Huidobro and Mauricio Rosencof, thus condemned, survived because they could talk to each other by tapping on the wall. In that way they told of dreams and memories, fallings in and out of love; they discussed, embraced, fought; they shared beliefs and beauties, doubts, and guilts, and those questions that have no answer.

When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others.

Galeano, Eduardo. "Celebration of The Human Voice/2." The Book of Embraces. Trans. Cedric Belfrage. New York: Norton, 1989. 25.