From El Capitán, EZLN, original here.

The fig tree rubs its wind 
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the forest, cunning cat, 
bristles its brittle fibers.

(Romance Sonámbulo.
Federico García Lorca)

Yes, the wind and the mountain seem to have known each other for a long time. I could tell you the exact date, but it is not relevant… or something, depending. It may not be understood that firm but apparent resignation or resistance: the mountain in enduring one blow after another; the wind in its apparent retreat, giving up to return later. Always the same, always different.

But it is not these hasty twists and turns that worry the mountain. She has seen worse, if you ask her. No, what concerns them are the storms that come with bulldozers, excavators, mineral prospectors, tourist companies, factories, shopping malls, trains, governments that pretend to be what they are not, destruction, death. In short: the system.

So it would not be surprising if they reach an agreement, mountain and wind. After all, they share the same mother: Ixmucané, the most knowledgeable.

No, I won’t tell you the exact date of their first meeting. But let’s say that they have known each other for a long time, that the skeptical gesture and the sneer of contempt of the mountain at the first rays of light and gale of wind is something already routine. The same goes for the insolence of the wind when it tears off locks of the mountain’s green hair with the force of rain, wind and thunder. The scratches that the wind throws with clumsy passion, wounds like watery ditches, are not enough to attenuate the bitter rejection of the mountain. They meet, they part ways, and, in the end, they end up embracing and saying goodbye without promises or confessions. A complex relationship that has a lot to do with acceptance and rejection. “Love”, then.

-*-

They say that they say that they say that it tells a legend yet to be written, that there was a meeting and that they called the family of the Votán, guardian and heart of the people. And so the mountain said:

“My children, the most beloved, what you read before in my skin and hair is coming. The brother wind, lord Ik´, brings fierce news of another storm, the deadliest of all. We already know. And it is up to the whole family to resist and defend. You are the guardians who were created to protect. Without you, we die and wander without meaning. Without us, you become lost beings, with only emptiness in your heart and no hope in your existence. Ik´ tells what his heart saw: that, in heaven and earth, the animals share the restlessness and the anxiety.

They hear it in Cauca and in the neighborhoods of Slovenia. In Japan and in Australia. In Canada and in SLUMIL K´AJXEMK´OP. In Norway, in Sweden, in Denmark and in Nicaragua, which neither surrenders nor sells out, never! In La Polvorilla and in the wound that the trans-isthmusan train, a festering sore, makes in the hearts of the original peoples who fight. In the homelands that war multiplies like misfortunes and in those who have Open Arms to help the helpless. In Ostula and in Greenland. In tortured Haiti and in the Mayan cenotes defiled by the rails of demagogy. In the displaced and in those evicted from life by extortion. In the libertarian @ who has warned, for some time, that the State is not a solution but a problem. In the Palestinian girl who with that bomb received the unknown of life… and the certainty of death.

This is what they say to the brother Saami people, to the Mapuche, to the gypsy with the house on his back, to the original people of all lands and seas, to those who fight and resist in the land that grows upwards, to the fisherman who works life in the sea. They tell it to girls who understand the forgotten language. To boys with serious eyes. To women who seek forced absences. To people of age who put on make up on their scars like agonizing wrinkles. To those who are neither he nor she and fuck Rome. To all human beings who, like maize, have all the colors and on the table, the ground, the lap have all the ways.

But not everyone listens. Only those who look far and deep understand what that word that Ixmucané speaks, the most wise, says and warns.

So look for the way, my children. And look for the who. Raise the word with lord Ik’ in one hand and my heart in the other. Remind the world that death and tomorrow are made in the shadows of the night. Light is forged in darkness.”

-*-

Yes, the wind and the mountain met again. But this time it was different. The dawn had taken a long time to arrive, perhaps stifled by the heat, but at the first ray of light cracking the huapác, it immediately came with a rain like a slap in the face.

In the hut, the sound of the drops on the tin roof made it difficult to hear. But one could clearly see, thanks to the wobbly benevolence of a lighter, a piece of paper with multiple scratches on the table – burnt and with bits of damp tobacco – on it. The only thing that could be read clearly was:

“Patience is a virtue of the warrior.”

Okay. Cheers and may the night find us as it should be, that is, awake.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

THE CAPTAIN.
August 2024.

P.S.- Yes, of course, and of the she-warrior. Yes, and of the she-he-warrior. Of the warrioroa? Really?

______________________________________________

Translated into English by the Chiapas Support Committee. Read the original at Enlace Zapatista here: