Perhaps a text is, in fact, a game of rhythms, of steps, of the time it takes between one word and the next. Perhaps a text is a guide. Let's imagine I'm carrying a flag, or two. Free tours. 

 

This is a text about a set of drawings, no, of writings, no, of engravings. Engravings. Engraving. Time. Through time. Across it. Like writing, printing. Expansion, reach. Far, far away and not alone. Far away. Over there. Over here. Back and forth. One continent, two continents. Imagination exercise: there! here! beyond! further! Gravity. Weight. Movement. Let's go! But laziness... Drag. Traction. Friction. Because it's a lie - time and distance. It's a lie and it weighs on the body. Traveling ten hours is traveling ten years. And how much time does creation take? How much time do encounters take? How long do we spend in a place and how long does it take for it to become ours? Discovering. Drawing. Drawings in the soil. In the sand. In the mud. Furrows. Ink (when I think of furrows I always think of ink). Prints. Touch, skin. Paper. Image. Map. Body. Hand. Ink, again. The drawing of the palm of the hands. The destination mapped out. From afar, from forever ago. The road to be traveled. The path cut. The journeys and the others. Those who pierce us, who find us, who seek us out. The river and the sea. What goes and keeps going, and what returns. Always. If only that was its destiny, to go in order to return. And us, traced in time and drawing the mirror of what surrounds us. The mountains of our body, of the voices that, sharp, pierce through. Deep, profoundly. That tell us - come back. Or - stay, I'll come to you. The world is a translation of what occupies us in our innermost being. Of traces. Of character. The sea as if it knew its size: immense, infinite. Ten-hour journeys that are... impossibly eternal. The time that passes and the distance. Never again, no. Never. What ground is this? I remember looking at the moon and seeing myself in it. Twenty-eight days. Everything in and around the world seems to show itself in us. As if we were part of it. As if we were world, earth, nature, landscape. As if we were landscape. As if we were moon, sun, water. As if we were night, mist, darkness. As if we were and as we are. How we contain it, how we reveal it. How we mute and how we melt. How we freeze, how we weep. And how it is in this foolish manifestation that we'll be able to look and realize: that way! The door opened through the tears. Like a compass, the sea always knows where to return.

​

Maria Miguel von Hafe