daron aric hagen

I.

Festival of San Sebastián, Diriamba, Nicaragua, 2005. We were privileged to be able to view the Mass from the choir loft above the front door of the basilica. Over three thousand singing people stood hip to hip inside, another three thousand shoulder to shoulder in the plaza outside. The statues of the saints covered in ribbons and silver Milagros were carried down the central aisle, preceded by elaborately costumed dancers cutting intricate steps, huge colorful flags waved by proud, immaculately dressed young men, deafening drummers, and pipers.

The air trembled, despite the amazing heat and humidity. The hair on my neck and arms rose and stayed that way as, sixty feet above us, the bells began to peal. Below, the procession passed through the doors. I was permitted to help ring the bells. Ecstatically clutching the rope, flying a dozen feet up and down, I looked first one way to see waves of people reaching up to touch the saints as they passed in the plaza, then another to see the huge clappers inside the bells, and then another to see the old bullet holes pocking the belfry’s inner walls.

II.

December night, Philadelphia, 1981. Complete Quaker silence within the little empty diner at the corner of Eleventh and Spruce and in the weather-stilled city without. I sat at a table alone by the plate glass window, looking out at the enormous snowflakes falling straight down, holding open in my left hand a copy of Le Père Goriot and cupping a mug of hot coffee in my right. At midnight, a pre-war electric trolley skimmed soundlessly by on its tracks, windows steamed up by the passengers, giving them the color and texture of Hopper Nighthawks. A spray of sparks erupted from the point at which the wires above met the contact arm. In this silence I heard my own voice. If mother’s cancer had been diagnosed, I didn’t yet know it; the whole world was opening before me, and I did know that.