On the uses of paper
BY Pablo Sigüenza Ramirez
translation by willy palomo

Each time we use paper to write
we ought to remember the death of a tree
from a portion of a forest
of that dark bark
and another thousand truths
              less oxygen for life
              a hotter planet
              the slow and permanent
melting
                                           of Artic glaciers 

That’s why we must cry
each time any ream of paper
is used to give life
to a myriad of prisons and oppressions
for example
marriage certificates
and titles of private property:
              each marriage certificate is
              in itself
              a grant of private property
              and every title of that kind
              is the origin of oppression

It’s a tragedy
to think of things like that
that a beautiful tree, thirty meters tall
lush with red springtime flowers
is now a blank check
stomping on someone’s dignity
or the paper at a banknote printer
stamped with the face of some stupid ruler

It’s a tragedy
to think of things like that
the trunk of a gorgeous teak
or a hundred-year-old oak
turned into a poster
to advertise houses and apartments
payable in twenty years
What was once the nest of a mockingbird
now finds itself imprinted
with the half-naked silhouette of the first lady
of the United States
in an auto shop on Elena Ave;
a man-made beechwood forest
used by media corporations
to lie day after day
from biased editorials
from hired writers
from morbid companies cleaning their images,
banks, mines, churches…

If we are going to sacrifice a tree,
it is imperative we thank it for its life and sacrifice

If we are to use paper,
              may it be with the verses of a wounded seagull
                             or thumping hearts

The paper itself ought to thump
for the metamorphosis to be worth it
only with its lifesong
do we honor the continuity of the forest

Only liberty will sow new seeds
time has run out

Liberty as a human idea
is the only thing to survive its species  
              there will be no paper
              the survivors
              their seed
                             will be free