Downpouring

"Está aguacerando aquí en Manhattan," she said. Aguacerando—an active, impetuous rain, sudden and abundant, like a deluge that rushes in but doesn’t linger. A newly created verb.

Two years ago, I emerged from a poetic drought, a time when words had become scarce, as if the world itself had forgotten how to speak. The world was cautiously stepping out from the cage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I found myself often staring out the window from my bedroom, searching for meaning in the silence.

One day, I remembered a morning from my childhood in Adjuntas. The rain was relentless, drumming on trees, flooding the streets, and washing over everything in sight. "Tremendo aguacero," my mother murmured, her voice soft as the rain. "Stay here, don’t go to school." She wrapped me in a comforter, kissed my forehead, and together we sat in silence, watching the downpour. It was in that stillness that I first learned the language of poetry.

Years later, I found myself piecing together the fragments of my existence, rediscovering the broken parts that had shaped me. I had just finished a poetry collection, yet the title eluded me. The deadline for a national poetry contest loomed just six hours away when my daughter called from New York. I never ignore her calls, and despite the pressing time, I answered.

The conversation was routine—how are you, how’s work, what are you up to? When it was my turn, I asked, "So, where are you now?"

"I'm fine," she said. "I just got out of work, and it's aguacerando here in Manhattan."

Aguacerando—an active, impetuous rain, sudden and abundant, like a deluge that rushes in but doesn’t linger. A newly created verb.

The word struck me with the force of that childhood storm. Sitting at my laptop, I began typing the letters: A-G-U-A-C-E-R-A-N-D-O. At that moment, my working title was relegated to a subtitle: "Domestic Mythologies of What We Never Were."

And so, my book found its name. It became a finalist in the contest, and by the end of 2004, it will be my first poetry book in Spanish since 2008.

I'll keep you posted.