Havana Times

Stones and Ships

Photo Feature by Caridad

HAVANA TIMES, July 26 – What could stones and ships have in common? The latter can perhaps be looked at as objects that are the symbol of movement, of voyages, of new knowledge; while the other is synonymous with paralysis, with perennial immobility?

A ship and a stone have wisdom in common, as well as the sea, or rather the water that renews everything. The stone is there, willing to being embraced by the water of the river, of the ocean; willing to listen to the murmur of the stars and the turtles that meet it in some blue place; willing to listen the murmur of those who have drowned, of those who never made it to the place of their dreams, of those who believed themselves to have escaped from the incomprehensible wheel of life and death.

The stone will keep all its secrets silent because there’s no way it can talk. It knows this and hides behind moss, disguising a little more the hardness that doesn’t possess, because it’s flexible, like all those who contain wisdom.

The ship, constructed with the remains of trees that once were at the summit or foot of a mountain, rocking to the rhythm of bird songs, sometimes allied with the stones to harden their roots. It listens to men cry or laugh about their desires.

It is as silent and attentive as the stones, to the point of becoming a floating frame that will believe itself to always be in movement, in a new place – until one afternoon some sailors discover that there is no longer remedy for the rotten wood. They will no longer be able to “see the world” with this ship and they will leave it in the sand, along with the stones that —silently— will welcome it.

Click on the tumbnails below to view all the photos in this gallery

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3 thoughts on “Stones and Ships”

  • Thank you Caridad
    I too like taking pictures and while reading your narrative I was reminded of some pictures I took of butterflies there is always that inquisitive mind behind he lens of the camera thinking about the subject of our pictures. I was taking pictures of the monarch butterfly one of the most beautiful butterflies on top of milkweed the plant it uses for reproduction and food one can think of the deep connections in nature the interdependencies between plants and animals and on and on and all this I thought just from taking the picture of a butterfly.
    Pictures records moments or one could said they stop time but I got a lot more time back from just that instant that split second that took me to record the photograph. Even now as I remember and write about it can be counted as an extension of those milliseconds that once stopped time in a photograph.

    Thinking now about your boats and rocks as metaphors, the rocks or stones are the perfect metaphor for that that does not change that is immovable for what resist change but one needs to be reminded that even from stones we can build ships! How paradoxical that that represent statism can move if we want it to move. We all have to want it bad enough and even the stones will move!

  • La Vela, Coro y Falcón, Venezuela

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